As we approach the introduction of a European multi-legal (or at least pan-European) Community trade mark (GM), the relevance of the Madrid system has been put to the test. The pressure on WIPO to maintain its relevance and strengthen the agreement by increasing the number of members, possibly through amendments. This culminated in the introduction of the Madrid Protocol, according to which the registration of the Community trade mark could be a `foundational registration` or `origin`, on the basis of which an international registration could be established. This mechanism is called “interconnection determination”. The Protocol was signed by many countries as a result of significant lobbying efforts by WIPO, including most of the current members of the Madrid Agreement and some countries that were members of the European Union but were not members of the Madrid Agreement. The Minutes entered into force on 1 April 1996 and entered into force on 1 December 1995. In 1966 and 1967, an attempt was made to tackle this problem by creating a new treaty that would reflect the needs of the time and not the world of the 1890s, when the agreement was adopted. This led to the drafting of the Trademark Registration Treaty (TRT), adopted in Vienna in 1973 and entered into force in 1980 with five Contracting States, namely Burkina Faso, Congo, Gabon, the Soviet Union and Togo. In the absence of new accessions to the TRT and the low number of registrations recorded since its introduction, it was clear that the TRT was unlikely to replace the Madrid Agreement. For example, the protocol makes it possible to obtain an international registration on the basis of a pending trademark application so that a trademark owner can effectively apply for an international registration at the same time or immediately after filing an application in a territory of the member court. In comparison, the agreement requires that the trademark owner already has an existing registration in a member jurisdiction, which can often take many months and sometimes years.
Compliance with the Convention or Protocol implies accession to the “Madrid Union”. As of June 2019 [Update], there will be 104 members from 120 countries…