OAPI is an acronym for Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (In English: African Intellectual Property Organization). OAPI was established in 1977 under the Bangui Agreement. The organization is made up of 17 member states who are mostly French speaking. By filing one Intellectual Property application, you get protection in all the member states.
The member states are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Comoros.
The Madrid System is an international system that allows the filing of a single trademark application that covers multiple jurisdictions. The system has its legal roots from the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (1989) and the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks of 1891.
Currently the Madrid System has 101 members covering 117 countries.
It is important to note that OAPI has not amended the Bangui Agreement since it deposited its instrument of accession to the Madrid Protocol, it is therefore unlikely that an international registration is enforceable in OAPI.
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