International trademark registration: the Madrid Protocol, the good, the bad and the ugly

The applicant needs a basic application or basic registration in the office of origin, and files the international application with WIPO through that office (Article 2 of the Protocol). For a Chilean company, the office of origin is INAPI, which accepts as a basis a pending application or a granted registration, requires the international application to be written in Spanish and charges 0.5 UTM per class for preparing, certifying and transmitting it (Exempt Resolution 184 of 2022). INAPI certifies that the goods and services of the international application are covered by the list of the Chilean basic mark (Rule 9 of the Regulations).

WIPO records the international registration and notifies each designated country, whose office examines the mark under its own law and may refuse it within one year, or 18 months for countries that so declared (Article 5). The registration lasts ten years and is renewed for ten more by a single payment to WIPO (Articles 6 and 7), with the same effective date for every country (Rule 31).

• One application in Spanish instead of one per country, each in its own language and through its own local agent. INAPI highlights that the system allows protection abroad without hiring a representative in the destination country at the filing stage.
• One portfolio to manage. Changes of owner, name or address and renewals are processed once with WIPO for all designated countries, and the renewal has a single date for all of them.
• Markets can be added as the business grows. A subsequent designation extends the registration to new countries (Article 3ter), with a basic fee of 300 Swiss francs plus the fees of each country added.
• The cost favors multi-country plans. The fees are paid once, in Swiss francs, and the system avoids repeating local agent fees at the filing stage in each country.

The four countries charge individual fees, so the supplementary fee per class beyond three is not due. Countries without an individual fee charge instead a complementary fee of CHF 100 each. Amounts according to WIPO’s schedule of fees and its table of individual fees updated on October 24, 2026; INAPI’s fee is paid in UTM.

• Half of the region is outside. Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and most of Central America are not members, according to WIPO’s list. For a Chilean company whose first markets are its neighbors, the system may cover the smaller part of the plan.
• The list cannot exceed the Chilean mark. The international application can narrow the goods and services for a given country, but never go beyond those of the Chilean basic mark (Article 3 and Rule 9). A basic mark drafted narrowly for the local business limits every market.
• Refusals are answered locally. Each country examines under its own law, and the holder has the same remedies as a local applicant (Article 5). In practice, answering a provisional refusal often requires a local representative: the United States, for example, requires a U.S.-licensed attorney in every provisional refusal, with six months to respond to an office refusal.
• Some countries add their own requirements. Designating the United States requires a declaration of intention to use the mark on a separate form (MM18), in English, and later a declaration of use between the fifth and sixth year of the U.S. registration.

For five years from the date of the international registration, it depends on the Chilean basic mark. If, before those five years expire, the basic application or registration is withdrawn, lapses, is renounced or is the subject of a final decision of refusal, revocation, cancellation or invalidation, the international protection can no longer be invoked to the same extent, in every designated country (Article 6(3) of the Protocol). The same applies if a proceeding begun within the five years ends in such a decision afterwards, and INAPI must then ask WIPO to cancel the registration (Article 6(4)). WIPO calls this risk "central attack": a single action against the Chilean mark brings down the protection abroad.

In Chile the risk has three concrete sources. The first is a basic application still in process: an opposition before INAPI took 27.2 months on average in 2024, according to the INAPI 2025 Report, so a contested Chilean mark keeps the international registration hanging for most of its dependency period. The second is non-use: a Chilean registration more than five years old that the company uses abroad but not in Chile can be cancelled for non-use at the request of anyone with a legitimate interest (Article 27 bis A of Law 19.039). The third is a late renewal of the Chilean mark, which lapses if not renewed within the six months following expiry (Article 24).

The fall is not total. Within three months from the cancellation, the holder can transform the international registration into national applications in each country, which are treated as filed on the date of the international registration, provided they cover goods and services of that registration and meet each country’s requirements, including its fees (Article 9quinquies). The date survives; the savings of the system do not.

• Madrid fits when the brand will reach three or more member markets, such as the United States, the European Union, Mexico, Colombia or Brazil, and the Chilean basic mark is already registered, in use in Chile and drafted broadly enough for the business abroad.
• National filings fit when the first markets are non-members such as Argentina or Peru, when there is a single foreign market, or when the Chilean mark is a recent application exposed to opposition.
• Many companies combine both: Madrid for the member markets and national filings for the rest. What matters is that the portfolio is designed as a whole, with the Chilean mark protected as the piece everything else depends on.

INAPI examines designations of Chile under Law 19.039, has 18 months to notify a refusal and reviews every provisional refusal. The holder has 60 business days to respond and must act through a representative domiciled in Chile. Licenses recorded in the International Register have no effect in Chile: they must be recorded with INAPI. Chile’s individual fee is CHF 210 per class, and CHF 314 per class on renewal. The full process for a foreign company is in trademark registration in Chile for foreign companies. For the Chilean registration itself, see trademark registration in Chile.