One world, one trademark has been the dream of the world’s intellectual property authorities for more than 100 years, since the Madrid Agreement came into being in 1891. The Madrid System provides a central framework for registering trademarks in member countries, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva.
For many years, the agreement languished – take-up by countries was poor, with many major trading nations refusing to join up. So trademark owners continued to use local agents around the world to file trademarks, rather than using the WIPO.
