Newsletter - Latin America IP SME Helpdesk

Following Mexico, Brazil has just joined the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs, expanding the geographical reach of World Intellectual Property Organisation’s system to 96 countries. As of August 1, 2023, Brazil is set to become the second country in Latin America to be a party to the agreement. Happy reading!

On 9 March, the modernised EU-Chile agreements on wines, spirits, and aromatised wines came into effect. These updated agreements aim to enhance bilateral trade in these products and play a significant role in agricultural trade for both the European Union (EU) and Chile. By modernising the agreements, it becomes easier to revise them in the future to ensure they align with any changes in the protected conditions of wines, aromatised wines, and spirits in both Chile and the EU.

The Paraguayan IP Office (Dirección General de Propiedad Intelectual - DINAPI) has initiated a cooperation agreement with the National Symphony Orchestra (OSN) to facilitate the formal registration of sound marks in Paraguay. This collaboration aims to establish a framework for recognizing and protecting sound marks, providing a new avenue for businesses to register their unique audio identifiers.

A Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) cooperation facilitates the collaboration of intellectual property (IP) offices and enables a multilateral work-sharing agreement. The PPH program between the European Patent Office (EPO) and the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Intellectual Property Protection of Peru (INDECOPI) has been made permanent.

As of 12 June 2023, the "partial revocation" for non-use of trademark registration has entered into force in Argentina. Under this provision, trademarks that have not been used within the country for a continuous period of five years prior to the initiation of the non-use cancellation action are susceptible to invalidation.

On 12 May 2023, The National Institute of Industrial Property of Argentina (INPI-AR) declared its intent to join DesignClass which is a search and translation tool for the product indicators required to apply for design protection. With that decision, Argentina begins to adopt the Harmonised Database of Product Indications (HDBPI) list of terminology in DesignClass.

GreenOffshoreTech is a Cluster Facilitated Project with the purpose of supporting innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), fostering development of the emerging Blue Economy industries. Featuring a virtual matchmaking and a brokerage event, this year the GreenOffshoreTech is open for all SME, enterprises, research institutions and universities as well as NGOs, who would like to connect, exchange ideas and find out about potential cooperations in the blue economy. As Latin America IP SME Helpdesk Team, we look forward to meeting SMEs and start-ups and introducing our free-of-charge services on intellectual property (IP) protection as well as enforcement in Latin America.

Eurochambres and the Latin America IP SME Helpdesk are glad to announce the online event “EU Business Support – Latin America". The event will mainly focus on the benefits of the EU-funded projects supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and Business Support Organizations (BSOs) that are interested or already active in the Latin American market. During the session, the Latin America IP SME Helpdesk, ENRICH in Latin America and Caribbean, the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator and AL-INVEST Verde will present their activities and/or their services.