All trademark offices are autonomous in their jurisdictions, and most of them require that an applicant located in a different country be represented by an attorney. This means protecting your mark in many different jurisdictions can be quite expensive and cumbersome. The Madrid Protocol system provides for the international registration of trade marks by way of one application that can cover more than one country. The Madrid Protocol requires the applicant to first file a “Basic Application” in one country, and subsequently file an “International Registration” with WIPO: the World Intellectual Property Organization located in Geneva which administers the Madrid Protocol. The WIPO filing is called an “International Registration” which is actually pretty confusing, as “International Registration” is not actually a trademark registration. It’s merely a conduit or middleman through which the information of the first application gets passed through to all designated jurisdictions. Each autonomous trademark office then examines the application and reports their decision whether to grant protection or not, or any further queries, back to WIPO, which in turn reports the information back to the applicant, either in written form or through their online database called the Madrid Monitor.