The Madrid Agreement requires for certain fees to provide for the registration of a trademark at the international level. Fees are also required for renewals, and supplementary fees are imposed regarding the designation of contracting parties, as well as any parties that will be licensed to use that particular mark.
All fees must accompany their respective applications at the time of submission in order to provide for the proper registration or administrative process to proceed without any lapse of time or incomplete recording of such procedure. Fees are to be paid to the International Bureau, whether the transaction be directly from the applicant or through the domestic Office in which the application is to be initially processed.
Contracting parties may also collect the required fees, as longs as a notification is made to the Director General. All fees are required to be made in full, and can be made through credit card, cash, or by setting up an account with the International Bureau, which acts similar to a debit account.
Under specific provisions provided under the Madrid Agreement, in situations where the payment is incomplete or not made in full, the recording of the actual administrative procedure concerned will be enacted once such payment is fully received; however, the Madrid Agreement allows for expiration dates or allotted periods of time in which the procedure will not be nullified, as long as payment is made in full within that time period.
In certain cases, an extra fee may be implemented where the original payment was not made in full, and the extra time is undertaken by the holder or owner of the trademark, or its contracting parties. The Madrid Agreement also requires individual fees, which refer to the contracting parties being designated for use with a particular mark.
The individual fee is comprised of two parts, the first being made at the time the international registration application is submitted, and the later part is to be paid during the imposed period decided by the International Bureau. The notification of payment by the contracting parties must contain the number of the international registration in question, the name of the holder or owner of the trademark, and the date of the second payment on which it must be fully paid. If the payment of the second part is in correlation to the number of goods or classes the trademark is associated with, such information must also accompany the payment notification.
If payment is not made by the effective expiration date by any concerned contracting parties, the international registration will be void in respect to those contracting parties. All payments made to the International Bureau are considered to be made once the Bureau itself receives such payment, and not any organization or Office initially accepting the payment. Fees are subject to change and modification as applied by the International Bureau and the Madrid Agreement, and are also subject to certain procedural or administrative processes and exemptions.
It is important to note that all payment transactions are to be made in Swiss francs, so the applicable exchange rates will apply, and such changes will be reflected on the imposed fees in accordance with the currency of the country of origin. Currently, a basic registration fee is 653 Swiss francs for a black and white application, and 903 Swiss francs for applications that require a color reproduction of the mark. For countries or nations that qualify for the Least Developed Country considerations provided by the Madrid Agreement provisions, the black and white application is 65 Swiss francs, and 90 Swiss francs for the color application.
Complementary and supplementary fees are imposed in 100 Swiss francs denominations, and multiplied by the number of applicable designations or classes of goods or services exceeding three. Individual fees are determined by the International Bureau, and are applied in concordance with the Madrid Agreement provisions.
