Madrid Protocol vs Direct Filing: How to Choose

Short answer: use WIPO's Madrid System (the Madrid Protocol) when you want several countries on one record and you can manage the five-year dependency on your home trademark. File direct when you need one or two countries, tight control of the wording, or local practice on your side. Plenty of brands do both.

WIPO's Madrid System is a filing route, not a world trademark. Every country you choose still examines the trademark under its own law and can refuse it. So the choice is not "cheap versus expensive". It is about how many countries you need, how solid your home application is, and how much central admin is worth to you.

If you want the mechanics of the system itself, read the guide to WIPO's Madrid System. This post is about picking a route.

When WIPO's Madrid System Is the Better Route

Use the WIPO route when you want to file once, in one language, pay in Swiss francs, and manage renewals, address changes, and ownership changes from a single record.

• You want coverage in several countries at once, not one or two.
• Your home trademark, whether an application or a registration, is solid on distinctiveness and on the goods and services wording.
• You expect to add more countries later. You can add them to the same international registration.
• You accept that some countries will still need a qualified local attorney if a refusal or opposition arrives.

When Direct National Filing Wins

Choose direct filing when speed into the local office, control of the language, or country-specific practice makes a difference.

• You only need one to three countries now and want to stage the rest later.
• You want the goods and services tailored to local practice rather than translated from a single international list.
• The local rules on power of attorney, specimens, or use claims are part of your strategy.
• Your home application is new or looks likely to draw an objection, so you would rather not hang other countries off it yet.

What a Direct Filing Costs at the Office

These are the government fees. They do not include professional fees, translations, or the cost of answering a refusal. For the Total per country, see our pricing.

Two things fall out of that table. First, class count drives cost almost everywhere, so a tight specification is the cheapest decision you will make. Second, a foreign company filing in India usually pays the higher tier, which is worth knowing before you budget from a headline figure.

What WIPO's Madrid System Costs

Pricing through WIPO has two layers. WIPO charges a basic fee in Swiss francs for the international application, and then each country you choose adds its own fee. Some countries charge a standard complementary fee, others have declared an individual fee that is closer to their national schedule and often scales with classes.

Because those individual fees are set by each country and change when national schedules change, we do not publish a figure for the WIPO route that could be out of date by the time you file. WIPO runs a fee calculator that prices a specific country list and class count on the day you use it, and that is the number to budget from.

The practical rule from our files: with two target countries, price both routes before you choose, because the WIPO route still carries a fee for each country and a likely step with a local attorney. From about five countries upward, the admin savings usually start to show, subject to which offices you pick and how many classes you need.

Timelines

The WIPO route has one extra step. WIPO checks formalities and sends your application to each office, and only then does national examination begin. A direct filing goes straight into the local queue.

That extra step affects when the office receives your file, not how fast it examines. Registration speed is set by the local backlog and by the opposition window, so a slightly later start can still finish first if it avoids a refusal. Plan around five separate stages rather than one number:

• Filing date and application number.
• Formalities review.
• Substantive examination and any provisional refusal.
• Opposition window.
• Registration and certificate.

The Five-Year Dependency, and Central Attack

This is the biggest non-cost factor, and it is the one that surprises people.

For the first five years, your international registration depends on the home trademark it was built on. WIPO calls it the basic mark. If that home trademark is canceled or cut back in that period, the protection in every country that hangs off it falls with it. That is central attack.

You are not without a remedy. You can transform the protection in each affected country into a national application and keep the original filing date, but the window is short and you pay government fees and a qualified local attorney in each country to do it. Replacement and transformation covers that mechanism in detail.

How we manage the risk:

• Sequence the filings. File direct in one or two priority countries first, and let the home trademark clear examination before you file a broad international application.
• Tighten the home trademark. A vague or overbroad goods list on it is the thing most likely to be attacked.
• Clear the name properly before you file, in the countries that matter. Start with a free trademark check, then go deeper where the stakes are high.
• Keep a transformation plan on file, so a cancellation does not become a scramble.

The Hybrid Split Most Portfolios End Up With

Many brands file direct in two to four core countries and use an international application for the wider ring. You get local nuance where revenue is, and one record for everything else.

A simple decision tree:

• If a country is core revenue, file direct there first.
• If you need several other countries with a predictable goods list, cover them in one international application.
• If the home trademark may face objections, hold the international application until the home trademark clears examination.
• If your roadmap adds countries over time, add them to the same international registration rather than file a new international application.

You can also split by trademark type. Put the word mark through WIPO for reach, and file the stylized logo direct in the one country where the specimen or acquired-distinctiveness argument matters.

A Worked Example

A consumer electronics company planned a launch in the United States, China, the European Union, and six smaller countries. The United States goods list needed tightening, and China was a first-to-file worry because of the factory relationship. We filed direct in China and the European Union, then based an international application on the United States trademark and covered the six secondary countries once the United States application had cleared examination. The result was local control where it mattered and one record for the rest, with renewals and future additions running off a single international registration.

Your Planning Checklist

1. Rank your target countries by revenue and launch date.
2. Clear the name in the core countries, and run a knockout check on the ring countries.
3. Choose the home trademark and write the goods and services carefully. Overbroad claims invite refusals and raise central-attack risk.
4. Price both routes. Use the government fees above for direct filings and the WIPO calculator for the international application, then add professional fees and a contingency for office actions.
5. Decide the hybrid split, if any.
6. Budget for refusals. Our office action response service can take those over.
7. Plan monitoring and renewals from day one, including trademark renewal dates.
8. Add countries and regions in stages as you expand.