International registrations under the Madrid Protocol

International registrations of trademarks are registrations conducted under an agreement called the Madrid Protocol.

New countries accede to the protocol all the time. See WIPO’s list of states party to the Madrid Protocol (see the column on the right). [pdf]

In Finland, you can apply for international registration if you are a Finnish citizen, or if you are domiciled in Finland or have a real and effective industrial or commercial establishment in Finland. You must have a Finnish trademark registration or an application pending in Finland concerning the mark in question. The international registration must be consistent with that Finnish basic registration or basic application.

You file the application in English with the National Board of Patents and Registration, which certifies that the international application and the Finnish basic registration or basic application are consistent with each other, and then forwards the application to the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, in Geneva, Switzerland. WIPO is in charge of the international registration of trademarks.

In the application, you must designate the Madrid Protocol member countries in which you apply for protection. The international registration is effective in the designated countries where there are no obstacles to the registration under their laws.

You can request a territorial extension of protection after the registration. That may be necessary if your company is for example entering new markets or when new countries have acceded to the Madrid Protocol.

An international registration is valid for ten years and it can be renewed for further periods of ten years from the expiry of the previous period of registration.

The validity of an international registration is for five years dependent on the validity of the national basic registration or basic application (the Central Attack rule). Changes in the basic registration or basic application will also affect the international registration.

Fees under the Madrid Protocol

In Swiss francs, on the WIPO website

Read more about the Madrid system on the WIPO website.