Starting October 1, filing an international trademark application through the Madrid Protocol from the United States will look a bit different. Instead of using the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Trademark Electronic Application System International (TEASi) filing tool, international trademark applicants must now create a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Account, learn a new filing interface, and pay WIPO directly. None of it is optional, and none of it will be intuitive the first time you try it under a filing deadline.
What’s Actually Happening
The USPTO is moving United States international filing from its in-house TEASi platform to WIPO’s Madrid e-Filing system. To help ease the transition, the USPTO has established a two-month window, from July 31 to September 30, 2026, allowing filings through either system. After that, with limited exception, every new international application based on a United States application or registration must go through Madrid e-Filing.
The Good and the . . . Different
The Madrid e-Filing platform brings tangible benefits that should, in many ways, improve the filing experience compared to the TEASi platform.
Efficiency: At the filing stage, the USPTO will now be able to send informal messages about correctable issues rather than denying a certification outright, which should lead to fewer Petitions to the Director and refiled applications. Further, because applicants are corresponding directly with WIPO, applicants will no longer need to wait for Notices of Irregularity or responses to process through the USPTO, reducing delays and taking the guess work out of deadlines.
Accuracy: The Madrid e-Filing platform auto-populates relatively more categories of information automatically from the underlying U.S. application or registration, which should reduce errors caused by manual data entry.
Immediate Rule Implementation: Because WIPO operates the Madrid e-Filing platform, rule changes are applied when made and United States applicants no longer need to wait for a separate USPTO development and implementation cycle.
However, in exchange, applicants need to learn an unfamiliar filing system that doesn’t always account for the USPTO’s intricacies and leaves room for error.
WIPO Account: Inherent to the transition is the requirement that filers learn a new filing system and create a WIPO Account. This isn’t all bad, as setting up a WIPO Account isn’t difficult and provides access to the eMadrid workbench, a dashboard where filers can track application statuses, pull documents, manage payments, get notifications, and handle renewals and ownership changes, but it’s one more account, one more password, one more system to remember, and a potentially more overwhelming process than TEASi’s dedicated purpose and straightforward application.
Payment: Delinking from your USPTO account also means that applicants must pay WIPO directly, in Swiss francs, rather than the USPTO, in dollars. While this change allows for additional payment methods, including a WIPO Current Account, debit cards, and mobile wallets, and removes Pay.gov’s daily credit card cap, applicants won’t be able to pull from their USPTO deposit account and currency conversion, including any payment processor fees, are now baked into every filing.
Known Glitches: While the Madrid e-Filing system does carry over many application details from a base application or registration, the Madrid e-Filing platform doesn’t recognize United States registration numbers and there’s a known glitch in how goods and services information carries over for certification marks. Neither is detrimental, but both require additional attention when filing and are a potential trap for anyone that relies too heavily on the Madrid e-Filing platform’s automated information population.
Moving Forward
While the TEASi platform is still available through September 30, all applicants will eventually need to learn the Madrid e-Filing system. The transition shouldn’t stop applicants from using the Madrid System, but its changes and glitches do give applicants, especially for those who file Madrid applications rarely or haven’t even set up a WIPO Account, reason to be especially careful when filing. Whether you’re an attorney who files the occasional trademark application or a business that handles its own Madrid System filings, putting off learning Madrid e-Filing until the last minute could turn into a filing error or missed priority filing deadline.
Please contact a member of the HSE Intellectual Property team if you have any questions on the USPTO’s transition to the Madrid e-Filing system or whether filing your next foreign application through the Madrid System is right for you.