How to Use the Madrid System: Procedures and e-services

File an international application (Form MM2) through your “home” IP Office. This Office, known as your Office of origin, will certify your international application and forward it to WIPO.

Note that if your Office of origin is Australia or Benelux, you can file your international application online using Madrid eFiling .

WIPO conducts only a formal examination of your international application. This means that it does not refuse or grant trademark protection; WIPO simply checks the information presented in your international application. If your application complies with formal requirements, your mark is recorded in the International Register and published in the WIPO Gazette of International Marks. At this stage, you become the holder of an International Registration. WIPO will send you a certificate of registration and notify the IP Offices in all the territories where you wish to have your mark protected, as indicated in your international application.

After receiving a notification from WIPO, the IP offices of the territories in which you have applied for protection will conduct a substantive examination of your trademark in accordance with their laws. Each office will decide, within 12 or 18 months, whether or not your trademark can be protected in their territories. WIPO will inform you of their decisions. If an IP Office refuses to protect your mark, either totally or partially, this decision will not affect the decisions of other IP offices. If an IP office accepts your trademark, it will issue a statement of grant of protection. The international registration of your mark is valid in each designated contracting party for 10 years. You can renew the registration through the Madrid System at the end of each 10-year period.