WIPO Seeks Targeted Input on Madrid Certificates: Should Designated Offices Be Required to Issue National or Regional Certificates on Grant of Protection and Renewal?
On March 26, 2026, WIPO launched a targeted consultation for international trademark registration holders and representatives on a question that goes well beyond procedural fine-tuning: should the Offices of designated Madrid System members be required to issue a national or regional certificate when protection is granted, and again when an international registration is renewed? The survey is anonymous, takes no more than 10 minutes to complete, closes on April 24, 2026, and WIPO has expressly stated that the responses will directly inform discussions at the next session of the Working Group on the Legal Development of the Madrid System in October 2026.
This announcement deserves close attention because it touches a long-standing institutional boundary inside the Madrid System. An international registration may already have a clear record and protection status within the system, yet in some local enforcement, administrative, transactional and renewal contexts, right holders may still be asked to produce a document that looks and functions more like a national or regional certificate. In other words, the issue is not merely whether one extra paper should exist. It is whether the Madrid System should move toward a stronger bridge between centrally administered international rights and locally usable proof of those rights.
1. What this consultation really signals: WIPO is moving the certificate question from drafting logic to user evidence
Institutionally, this survey did not appear out of nowhere. WIPO has explained that it was requested at the twenty-third session of the Working Group on the Legal Development of the Madrid System in September 2025. That matters because the issue of national or regional certificates has already moved past the level of abstract drafting theory. It is now at the stage where the system needs evidence from actual users before deciding whether a broader rule would solve real problems or merely create new layers of procedure.
This also explains why the consultation is aimed specifically at holders of international registrations and their representatives. The most useful evidence is not a generic statement of principle. It is whether users repeatedly encounter a practical mismatch between rights that are valid within the Madrid framework and rights that still require more locally familiar documentary proof in real-world settings. If that mismatch is widespread, a certificate requirement may be seen as a way to strengthen the practical enforceability and usability of Madrid-based rights. If the friction is limited to a small number of jurisdictions, or can already be solved through reliable electronic access, the case for a system-wide mandatory rule becomes much less straightforward.
2. Why this question matters in practice: local certificates may affect enforcement, transactions and compliance workflows
For right holders, the importance of national or regional certificates is not really symbolic. It is operational. In some jurisdictions, courts, customs authorities, online platforms, banks, business partners, distributors, public bodies or administrative agencies may not treat a Madrid status record, a statement of grant of protection or a system-generated entry as functionally equivalent to a local certificate of registration or continued protection. The gap becomes especially visible where proof needs to be produced quickly, in a local language, in a familiar format and in a form that third parties can file, archive or verify without further explanation.
That gap can arise both at the grant stage and at the renewal stage. At the grant stage, the issue is often whether the holder can readily prove that the international registration has effect in the designated member concerned. At the renewal stage, the issue may shift toward proving that protection continues locally and remains fully in force. For cross-border businesses, these problems are not confined to litigation or anti-counterfeiting actions. They can also appear in licensing, commercial negotiations, financing due diligence, customs recordals, channel onboarding and internal compliance review. That is why the certificate debate, although technical on its face, is closely tied to the real usability of international trademark rights.
3. If WIPO moves toward a mandatory requirement, the gains and the costs will both be structural
If the rules eventually move toward a requirement to issue certificates, the clearest benefit would be standardisation of proof. Holders would no longer need to explain, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, which WIPO documents should count as sufficient evidence, nor depend on the varying familiarity of local officials, authorities or counterparties with the Madrid System. For Offices that already issue certificates for national marks, extending similar output logic to protected international registrations could improve functional equivalence between Madrid-based rights and locally filed rights.
But the institutional cost should not be underestimated. Offices do not all manage certificates, status information and renewal-related documentation in the same way. Some may already consider searchable databases and downloadable electronic outputs sufficient. Others may need legislative changes, new workflows, IT adaptation or revised fee structures before they could comply with a broader rule. The renewal side is even more delicate, because renewal is centrally administered through the international registration rather than through a full local re-examination. That raises difficult questions about whether a local renewal certificate should always be required, how it should be generated, when it should be issued, and who should absorb the implementation burden. Seen in that light, WIPO’s current consultation may be testing not only whether users want “certificates” in the abstract, but whether they actually need a more reliable, verifiable and locally acceptable evidentiary output, regardless of the exact formal label.
4. The most useful feedback is not a slogan for or against the proposal, but a concrete map of friction points
For holders and representatives who decide to respond, the most valuable contribution is likely to be specificity rather than a broad position. Which jurisdictions create repeated difficulty? In what situations do current grant-of-protection statements or status records fail to substitute for a local certificate? Which institutions explicitly ask for local-format proof? Is the renewal stage more problematic than the grant stage? Is online access already enough, or is there still no document that can be filed, archived and accepted by third parties without further explanation? Those kinds of examples are far more likely to shape the Working Group’s next discussion than a general declaration of support or opposition.
Representatives in particular are well placed to compare practice across designated members. In some jurisdictions, the problem may not be the complete absence of a certificate, but the lack of a clear retrieval path, the wrong language, weak electronic verification, unstable download access or poor third-party acceptance of digital outputs. In others, there may be no meaningful practical obstacle at all, in which case a universal obligation could impose more system burden than user benefit. By placing this survey ahead of the October 2026 Working Group session, WIPO is clearly gathering user-side evidence for the next stage of policy discussion. For international trademark owners, this short anonymous survey before April 24 may therefore be more than an administrative questionnaire. It may be a low-cost opportunity to influence how the Madrid System thinks about proof, usability and local enforceability in the years ahead.
