MA ◄ ► EU NAT.     |    MA ◄ ► EUIPO

By filing an application for an international registration of a trademark, the trademark can be registered simultaneously for a large number of countries designated in the application in a central registration procedure in accordance with the Madrid Agreement (MA) or the Protocol to this Agreement (Prot.). After international registration, refusals of protection can still be declared for individual countries by their authorities.

Advantages of an international trademark registration:
The application for registration is submitted centrally in one language and the trademark is registered centrally. This avoids the high costs associated with individual national applications.

For the countries of the European Union, the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) can be designated centrally or individual EU countries can be designated at national level. In addition to many African states, several American, several Asian and several Caribbean states, the U.S.A., Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico and Japan are among the important countries of the Madrid Agreement (MA) and/or the Protocol States.

List of MA and Protocol member states (external link - PDF).