A UK trademark registration protects you in the United Kingdom, and nowhere else. The moment you start selling into Germany, the UAE or Japan, you are relying on whatever rights those countries give an unregistered foreign brand, which is usually very little. Trademarks are territorial. Every country keeps its own register, charges its own fees and examines applications under its own law.
The traditional answer was to instruct a local attorney in every country that mattered, file separately in each, and then manage a stack of unconnected registrations with different renewal dates in different currencies. That still works. It is also expensive and slow to administer, which is why most UK businesses expanding abroad look first at the Madrid Protocol.
One application, one office, up to 133 countries
The Madrid Protocol is an international filing system run by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva. Instead of filing country by country, you file a single international application, in English, through the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), and designate the member countries where you want protection. As at July 2026 the system has 117 members covering 133 countries, including the European Union (covered by a single designation), the United States, China, Japan and India. Around 64,000 international applications were filed through it in 2025.
The result is not one worldwide trademark. It is a bundle of national rights obtained through one channel: each designated country still decides for itself whether your mark can be protected there.
What you need before you start
An international application has to be built on a “basic” UK trademark: an existing UK application or registration for the same mark, in the same ownership. You cannot file through the UKIPO for a logo you have never filed in the UK, or for a variant of it; the international application must be identical to the basic mark.
The application itself goes on form MM2, with a £50 UKIPO handling fee. The UKIPO certifies that it matches your basic mark and passes it to WIPO. For most businesses the sequence is simply secure the UK filing first, then extend abroad as the export plan firms up.
What it costs
The fees come in layers, and WIPO charges in Swiss francs. On top of the £50 handling fee there is a basic fee of CHF 653 (CHF 903 if the mark is in colour), then a standard fee of CHF 100 for each designated country, except that many countries have opted to charge their own “individual fees” instead, which vary widely. Add a further CHF 100 for each class of goods or services beyond three.
WIPO publishes a fee calculator, and running your actual country list through it is worth doing before assuming Madrid is the cheaper route. The reliable saving is in professional fees and administration (one application, one language, one renewal) rather than in the official fees themselves.
What happens after you file
WIPO checks the formalities, records the mark in the International Register and notifies each country you designated. Each of those offices then examines the application under its own national law, exactly as if you had filed there directly. An office must tell WIPO whether protection is refused within 12 months, or 18 months for countries that have opted for the longer period, as the UK itself has. If the deadline passes in silence, the mark is protected in that country.
Where an office raises objections, it issues a provisional refusal, and any response is handled locally. That is the point at which a local attorney comes in, and only for the countries where a problem actually arises. Third parties can also oppose in each country, much as they can at home; our guide on what happens if someone opposes your trademark explains the UK version of that process.
The five-year catch
For its first five years, the international registration is tied to the UK basic mark. If the basic mark fails during that window, whether refused, successfully opposed, invalidated or surrendered, the international registration falls with it in every designated country. This is known as central attack, and it is the standard warning given about the Madrid system, because a challenger who brings down your UK mark brings down the foreign family with it.
There is a safety valve. Within three months of the cancellation being recorded, you can transform the lost designations into direct national applications that keep the original filing date, but at fresh national fees in each country, which claws back much of the saving. The practical lesson sits earlier in the sequence: an international registration is only as strong as the UK mark underneath it, so a contested or vulnerable UK application is a shaky foundation for a filing programme. After the five years have run, the international registration stands on its own.
Growing with it, and where it does not reach
Countries can be added later by subsequent designation (form MM4, basic fee CHF 300), so a common pattern is to start with two or three markets and extend as distribution grows. The member list keeps growing too: Saudi Arabia, the newest member, becomes available to designate from 8 October 2026. Renewal is central, with one renewal every ten years covering every designation.
The system’s main limit is coverage. Economies outside it include Argentina, South Africa, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. China’s membership does not extend to Hong Kong, Taiwan or Macau, each of which needs its own filing. In all of these, a direct national application through local attorneys is the only route.
Madrid or direct?
Madrid suits a UK business protecting one settled brand across several member countries through a single channel. Direct national filings earn their keep where the target country is not a member, where there is no suitable UK basic mark to build on, where the brand or its ownership differs between territories, or where the basic mark is contested and the five-year dependency looks too risky. Many filing programmes sensibly mix the two: Madrid for the member countries, direct filings for the gaps. Our guide on building an IP portfolio on a startup budget looks at how businesses stage this kind of spending.
For a business at the point of exporting, the order of operations matters more than the system: secure the UK mark, check your roadmap countries against the member list, cost the designations properly, and add territories as the business grows into them.
Thinking about taking your brand abroad? ScalaxIP can help you plan the territories and handle the filings. Get in touch.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on your specific circumstances, please contact ScalaxIP at admin@scalaxip.com
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