News

Trademarks: Venezuela to use the Nice Classification exclusively

The Venezuelan Trademark and Patent Office (SAPI) issued an extraordinary Intelectual Property Gazette on February 10, 2020, annoucing a series of important changes, among which the following are highlighted:

1) Use of the national classification will be eliminated in all trademark applications filed after February 10, 2020, and the International Nice Classification, established by the Nice Agreement, version NCL11-2020, will be used exclusively. With this decision, the time for preparing applications as well as their processing and cost will be reduced because the application will only have to be filed in the international class. This will prevent filing in national classes resulting from reclassification.

2) An special service is created for obtaining decisions concerning oppositions relating to trademark goods and/or services, slogans, and trade names published in the Intellectual Property Gazettes from No. 462 of February 13, 2004 up to No. 599 of December 27, 2019. The official fee for this service is set at USD 120 per request.

3) An official fee of USD 120 will be charged for each opposition to trademarks published starting Intellectual Property Gazette No. 600 of February 7, 2020.

4) A procedure for requesting the cancelation of trademarks for non-use is established.

5) An special service for recordal in official books of changes made to registred trademarks and patents in cases of proven urgency (like litigations) is established. The official fee for this service is set at USD 120 per request.

6) A schedule for consulting pending and/or granted trademark and patent files is set.

7) A procedure for the declaring appellations of origin in Venezuela is established.

8) A procedure for granting collective trademarks in Venezuela is established.

We will issue communications with further information concerning each of these points as SAPI provides more details.

Generally speaking, the measures announced by SAPI represent an important leap forward in bringing this entity up to date with international Intellectual Property standards.

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@clarkemodet.com.ve.

Ivonne Gonçalves-Schwartz