Do I need to monitor my trademark globally?

Similarly to how you probably don't need to register a trademark globally, you also might not need to monitor it globally (outside of monitoring channels such as social media, which you would monitor as a whole). Bear in mind that monitoring is only one part of brand protection; you also have to be able to enforce your rights.

When choosing which countries to cover, consider the following:

• Where you are commercially active and have a revenue stream and goodwill among customers to protect.
• Whether you can, in theory, successfully oppose new applications filed in this country. For example, in the US, you could oppose younger marks if you've been present in the US market for longer, even without a US trademark. But in first-to-file jurisdictions, where ownership rights belong to the entity first applying for a trademark, you would need a registered trademark; otherwise, you'd be out of luck.

This means that the list of countries to monitor will likely overlap with the list of countries where you have a trademark, but it doesn't have to be the same.

One more thing to remember here is the EU's dual system of trademark protection. If you, for example, own a German trademark, you'll want to monitor Germany's IP office (DPMA) as well as the EU's IP office (EUIPO) since both German and EU trademarks can infringe upon yours.

Lastly, it's worth mentioning that if you have a trademark monitoring provider and are choosing from their packages, although you might not need it, global monitoring may be cheaper than subscribing to multiple single-country packages.