One China Ruling Can Collapse Your Entire Madrid Filing

Twelve countries. One international registration. One base mark. For five years, that base mark is a single point of failure, and if it is Chinese, it is also the easiest point in the whole structure to attack.

The mechanism is called central attack, and it is written into the Madrid Protocol rather than into any national law. It is not a bug, an edge case, or a risk that only affects unusual filings. It applies to every international registration for the first five years, and it operates without any assessment of whether the other eleven countries deserved to lose their protection.

Brands structure Madrid filings around cost and convenience. One application, one language, one fee schedule, many countries. That is a genuine advantage. What gets overlooked is that the structure has a load-bearing element, and the choice of that element is usually made casually.

Quick answer: Article 6(3) of the Madrid Protocol provides that, for five years from the international registration date, protection has no effect if the base application or base registration is withdrawn, cancelled, renounced or invalidated. The effect applies across all designated contracting parties. After five years the international registration becomes independent. Article 9quinquies allows transformation into national applications within a limited window, preserving the original date, but national fees apply in each state.

How the dependency works

An international registration is not a right. It is an administrative bundle that forwards a request to each designated office. Its legal foundation is the base mark: the application or registration filed with the office of origin.

For five years, that foundation carries the whole structure. If the base is refused, withdrawn, cancelled, renounced or invalidated, the International Bureau records that the international registration no longer has effect, and the protection in every designated state ceases on the same date.

Not reduced. Not converted. Ceased.

After the five-year period expires, the international registration becomes independent. From that point, a later cancellation of the base mark has no effect on the international registration. That is the entire point of the five-year clock, and it means the exposure is front-loaded into the period when a young brand is least equipped to monitor it.

Why a Chinese base is the riskiest choice available

Any base mark can fail. What makes China distinctive is how cheap and easy it is to make one fail.

Article 49 of the Trademark Law allows any entity or individual to apply to cancel a registration that has not been used for three consecutive years. There is no standing requirement. The applicant does not need to be a competitor, does not need any interest in the mark, and does not need to allege bad faith. The official fee is CNY 450, about USD 67.

Now place that against a typical Madrid structure. A brand files a Chinese application as the base, designates twelve countries, and has no Chinese commercial activity at all. The Chinese registration is granted and sits unused, because the brand sells in the designated markets rather than in China.

Three years later, the registration is exposed to a cancellation that costs the applicant less than a hundred dollars. If it succeeds, the international registration ceases to have effect everywhere, and the twelve countries go with it.

The asymmetry is the point. Protecting the base costs a small filing fee and some commercial activity. Attacking it costs a small filing fee and a wait.

The third row deserves attention because it is common. A pending application is not a stable base. If it is refused, the international registration loses effect, and a refusal on absolute grounds can arrive eighteen months into the process, well after the designations were relied upon commercially.

The rescue route, and its limits

Central attack is not always terminal, and the provision that saves some filings is underused because it requires fast action.

Article 9quinquies allows the holder to request transformation of the international registration into national or regional applications in the designated states, preserving the date of the international registration. That date preservation is the whole value: it means the transformed applications keep priority over anything filed in the interim.

Three limits apply.

It is time-bound. The request must be made within the period set by the applicable rules, which in practice means within a few months of the cancellation. Brands that learn about the cancellation late lose the option without ever knowing it existed.

It costs money in every state. Transformation is not free. Each designated office charges national filing fees, and the total often exceeds the original Madrid cost by a wide margin, because Madrid's efficiency came from avoiding exactly those fees.

It does not restore the international registration. The international registration is gone. What survives is a set of national applications, each examined separately under national law, each capable of being refused on its own merits.

The practical consequence: transformation is a salvage operation, not a fix. It is worth having available, and it is not a reason to be relaxed about the base mark.

Choosing a base that will not fail

The rule is simple and counterintuitive. The base should be your most stable registration, not your most convenient one.

For most foreign brands, that means the home market. A US brand with an established US registration in active use has a base that is difficult to cancel: cancellation requires a petitioner with standing, a contested proceeding, and grounds that go beyond simply not using the mark.

A Chinese base, by contrast, is convenient when the applicant is already filing in China. That convenience is real, and it should be weighed against the fact that the same jurisdiction gives any third party a cheap route to end the structure.

Three rules that follow.

Use a registered mark, not a pending application, as the base where the timeline allows. A pending application is exposed to refusal, which triggers the same effect as cancellation.

Do not use a Chinese base unless the mark is genuinely used in China. If China is a real market for the brand, the base is fine. If China is a filing of convenience, the base is a liability.

Watch the five-year clock. The exposure ends on a known date. Anything filed within a year of that date should be reviewed against it, and any cancellation threat to the base during the dependency period should be treated as a matter affecting every designated market at once.

The wider comparison between Madrid and direct national filing, including when the Madrid route is genuinely cheaper, is in Madrid versus direct CNIPA filing.

Defending the base during the dependency period

If the base is Chinese and the mark is in use, the defence is evidence, and it needs to exist before the cancellation is filed.

Chinese practice requires documents that tie the mark, the goods and a date together. Invoices that name the product but not the mark are commonly rejected. Advertising placed outside China proves nothing. Export manufacturing is not automatically use in the Chinese market.

The mechanics of defending a non-use action, including what CNIPA accepts and what it does not, are in the non-use cancellation guide. The related question of what an unused registration is worth even when it survives is in why three years of non-use removes damages.

There is a second threat to watch that is not filed by a third party at all. The 2027 amendments expand ex officio cancellation powers, which means a registration can be removed on the administration's own initiative rather than on an application. That route is covered in ex officio cancellation under the 2027 amendments.

Questions that come up every time

What is a central attack under the Madrid Protocol?

Under Article 6(3), for five years from the international registration date, protection has no effect if the base application or base registration is withdrawn, cancelled, renounced or invalidated. The effect is not limited to the country where the base mark fell.

What happens if my Chinese base mark is cancelled?

The international registration ceases to have effect in all designated contracting parties. It does not survive in the other countries on a reduced basis.

Can I save my Madrid registration after a central attack?

Yes, within a limited window. Article 9quinquies allows transformation into national or regional applications preserving the original international registration date. National fees apply in each state.

Why is a Chinese base riskier than a US or EU base?

China allows any entity or individual to cancel a registration unused for three consecutive years, with no standing requirement. A base registration with no Chinese commercial use is therefore exposed to a low-cost cancellation.

After five years is my Madrid registration independent?

Yes. Once the dependency period expires, a later cancellation of the base mark no longer affects the international registration.

Should I use a Chinese application as my Madrid base?

Only if the mark is genuinely in use in China and the registration is stable. Otherwise the base should be the registration in the market where the mark is most established.

Does a Madrid designation give me a Chinese trademark?

It produces a Chinese application examined by CNIPA, and if it succeeds, a Chinese right. It is still a separate right, subject to Chinese examination and Chinese cancellation rules.

What if I already filed with a Chinese base?

Then the dependency period is running. Use the mark in China if you can, keep evidence of that use, and monitor the base registration for any cancellation filing until the five years expire.