The national trademark authority, referred to as the national competent authority for short, refers to the national authority responsible for trademark registration designated by the governments of the member countries of this Agreement, or refers to the authority responsible for trademark registration jointly designated by the governments of several member countries of this Agreement. Judging from the situation of the relevant national authorities, except for the Benelux Trademark Office, which is designated by the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, all the others are designated by the governments of member countries.

There can only be one national competent authority among the member countries of the Madrid Agreement, and its function is to be responsible for or in charge of the international registration of trademarks. China's trademark competent authority is the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, which is the only official institution designated by the Chinese government to be responsible for the international registration of trademarks. The functions of the national trademark authorities are mainly:

(1) accepting applications for territorial extension transferred by the International Bureau. Any application whose territory extends to a member state of Madrid shall, in accordance with the relevant regulations, be transferred by the International Bureau to the competent trademark authority of that country and accepted by the competent authority. For example, a German company applied for the extension of a trademark territory to China, and the International Bureau transferred the application to the Trademark Office, the competent trademark authority in China. After receiving the application, the Trademark Office began to accept it.

(2) forwarding the application for international registration to the International Bureau. Where the trademark owner of the country of origin applies for the extension of his trademark territory to the relevant member countries of the Madrid Agreement, he must submit an application to the International Bureau through the trademark authority of the country of origin. In this regard, the trademark authorities have played the role of forwarding applications for territorial extension of trademarks.

(3) Agent for international registration of trademarks

When applying for international registration of trademarks, a trademark applicant may go directly to the competent authority of the country of origin or entrust an agent to act as an agent. Generally speaking, if the applicant has the ability to apply for it himself, he is willing to submit the application directly to the national competent authority; If the applicant is unable to handle it, he may entrust an agent. In the Madrid trademark international registration system, an agent refers to an institution entrusted by an applicant for international trademark registration to represent matters related to international registration. Agents often appear in the form of law firms, patent law firms or law firms.

The agent is a non-governmental organization, and its main agency functions are:

a. Entrusted by the applicant, acting as the agent for the applicant's application for international trademark registration and other related matters. The most basic condition for an agent to act as an agent for an applicant for international registration of trademarks is that an agent can act as an agent only when the applicant entrusts an agent to apply for international registration of trademarks; If there is no entrusted agent in the application, the agent has no right to forcibly represent.

B, entrusted by foreign applicants, to represent their international trademark registration and other related legal complaints. Where an application for international registration of a trademark specifies the protection of some countries concerned in the Madrid Agreement, each country concerned shall accept the application according to its domestic law.

If the application is rejected, the applicant may entrust the agent of each country concerned to represent the legal appeal of his application.

the agent will charge the agency fee for the international registration of the entrusted trademark and other related matters. The amount of agency fees is different depending on the country's agents, different agency matters and the length of agency time.