The Madrid Agreement concerning international trademark registration was first signed in 1891.
The agreement was adopted in Madrid, Spain, on April 14, 1891. It created an international registration mechanism through which trademark owners could seek protection in several member countries using a centralized filing and registration system.
The Madrid system later developed through revisions and, especially, the 1989 Madrid Protocol. The Protocol expanded participation and introduced procedural features that made the system more workable for countries whose trademark laws did not fit the original agreement as closely.
A common mix-up is to confuse the agreement with the Paris Convention, which dates to 1883 and established broader principles of industrial-property protection. Another is to choose 1900 or 1925: those dates refer to later revision conferences, including the Brussels revision in 1900 and The Hague revision in 1925.