BRAZIL | Industrial Designs | Due to the upcoming 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will perform accelerated examination procedures to Industrial Designs Applications related to sports products
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The decision –adopted by means of Resolution 167 of 2016 by the Brazilian Institute of Industrial Property (INPI in Portuguese) – is motivated in the fact that currently there are over 10.000 industrial designs applications related to sports products that had not been subject to examination, which exceeds INPI´s administrative capacity.
Accelerated examination will apply for all applicants requesting it before 30 June 2016. The applications must fulfill the following requirements: (i) the industrial design application must be relate to sports products; and (ii) the application filing date must be prior to 16 June 2016.
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COLOMBIA | Trademarks | Council of State reiterates some criteria for collating pharma trademarks
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The Council of State through Judgment dated 14 April 2016 (Judge María Elizabeth García Gonzáles) analyzed the similarity of the trademarks “BATEN BUSSIE” vs “VASTEN”, from Laboratorios Bussié S.A. and Laboratorios Farmacol S.A. (actually Takeda S.A.S.)-, registered under Class 25 of the Nice International Classification (pharmaceutical and veterinary preparations, among others), reiterating the following criteria for pharmaceutical trademark similarity analysis:
- According to Prejudicial Interpretation 131-IP-2002 from Andean Court of Justice, there should be no distinction between medical prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical trademarks.
- The analysis should not include common syllables. In this case the Council of State only analyzed syllables “VAS” and “BA”, leaving out the syllable “TEN”, as it was considered a common syllable, due to a search made in the Colombian Trademark office databases.
The mentioned judgment ordered the cancellation of “VASTEN” trademark, based on the foregoing criteria, concluding the trademark lacked of distinctiveness.
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COLOMBIA | Trademarks | Lack of opposition in trademark prosecution does not prevent its judicial challenge
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The Council of State through Judgment issued on 14 April 2016 (Judge Guillermo Vargas Ayala), expressed that oppositions during trademark prosecution are a faculty of any interested third party, but it is not a legal barrier to file administrative judicial actions.
This decision allowed the admission of the lawsuit filed by Rapidísimo Servicios Motorizados Ltda against Inter Rapidísimo S.A. challenging the validity of “INTER RAPIDÍSIMO” trademark, considering it was not distinctive in comparison with the trademark “RAPIDÍSIMO”. The trial was ruled in favor of the defendant.
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