On 31 October 2015, the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria will accede to the Madrid Protocol, thus finalising the process of standardisation within the international system of marks.
As of that date, the 95 Member States of the Madrid System will all be governed by the same protocol, allowing them to designate all the members of the system in the registration of their marks.
The Madrid System is governed by two treaties: the Madrid Agreement and the Protocol, concluded in 1891 and 1986 respectively.
States that are parties to one of the two treaties can then designate in the international registration of their marks only States that are parties to that same treaty.
In other words, States that are parties to the Agreement can’t designate in the registration of their marks States that are exclusively parties to the Protocol, and vice versa.
Algeria, which was party to the Madrid Agreement since 1972, was the last Member State of the Madrid System yet to accede to the Protocol, thus limiting the international registration of its marks to the 55 Member States to the Agreement.
Thanks to this final accession, the Madrid System is significantly simplified, since the Member States will base themselves solely on the Madrid Protocol to register their international marks.
In particular, it will no longer be necessary to wait for the registration of the basic mark to extend the protection to Algeria via the international trademark system.