Durán-Corretjer SLP

The Managing Partner of our firm, Mr. Luis-Alfonso Durán, has been invited by the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and by the Dominican Association of Intellectual Property (ADOPI) to be a speaker in the Seminar that both organizations will hold in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) on September 7th and 8th, 2012 on the topic "The Madrid Protocol for the International Protection of Trade Marks". This presence is made in our firm policy to be present in international events and contribute with our experience in the international advise on Industrial Property.

The Governments of the Philippines and Colombia have adhered to the Madrid Protocol for International Trade Marks, and therefore these countries can now be designated in all new International Trade Mark applications filed as of 25th July 2012 (the Philippines) and 29th August 2012 (Colombia).

We regret to inform you that Mr. Alfonso Durán, President of Honour of our firm, passed away last June 8, 2012 at the age of 86.

Mr. Alfonso Durán was the manager of the firm for 40 years, from 1955 until 1995. During this term, our firm experienced a great expansion both within Spain as well as internationally and achieved to position our firm among the most prestigious IP Firms, both in Spain and in Europe.

After his retirement, he continued on giving us advise in his capacity of President of Honour until he passed away.

We will always remember him and we will try to maintain the good values he transmitted to us of professionalism, ethics and loyalty to our clients.

A term was opened on January 12, 2012 which will end on April 12, 2012 for applying for new generic top level domains corresponding to trade marks, generic terms, geographic terms and terms of all kinds of communities.

The conditions for obtaining registration are very strict, as it is necessary to prove that the applicant has a high technical, operative and financial capacity. The registration and annual maintenance costs are also high.

If you would like to receive further information on these kinds of registrations, please contact our firm and we will gladly provide you with this information.

This year marks the 110th anniversary of the founding of our firm, which was established in 1902 by Mr. Joaquin Durán.

The whole team that makes up Durán-Corretjer is very proud to reach this landmark and we shall maintain our commitment to continue doing our best in order to give advice and provide the best service possible to our clients.

The first act to celebrate this anniversary is the launching of our new web site, through which we intend to reflect a combination of the traditional and the modern, as well as our values of competence, commitment, experience and international vocation, and our determination to bring added value to the services we render.
 

The Court of Justice of the European Union has issued a preliminary ruling on case C-70/10 SCARLET/SABAM referred by the Court of Appeal of Brussels with regard to the matter of the illegal downloading of files protected by copyright via the Internet.

The case originates from a dispute between an Internet service provider, Scarlet Extended SA, and the Belgian company SABAM, which manages for third parties the exploitation of works of music from authors, composers and publishers.

SABAM detected that the users of Scarlet’s services were downloading works from its catalogue via the Internet without authorisation and, therefore, without paying royalties and proceeded with filing a complaint against Scarlet before the Belgian Courts, requesting that means be established to make it impossible to commit those infringements. The Court of First Instance in Brussels upheld the complaint and found Scarlet guilty.

Scarlet filed an appeal against this decision, alleging that the sentence breached the Community Directive on electronic commerce and the fundamental rights of the European Union. The Court of Appeal of Brussels referred the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling, which has issued its verdict in the aforementioned sentence.

In its sentence, the Court of Justice of the European Union indicates that, although the owners of copyright have the right to prevent third parties from breaching their copyrights and, as such, they can take action against intermediates, such as Internet service providers when the clients of the service providers use those services to infringe copyright, any such actions must respect Community legislation, in particular, the Directive on electronic commerce. This Directive establishes that measures may not be adopted that require Internet service providers to control in a general manner the information that is transmitted via  their networks.

As a result, this sentence establishes that the Community regulations do not allow an obligation to be imposed on Internet service providers to install a system that filters all electronic communications that pass through their services and that correspond indiscriminately to all of their clients, as a preventative measure, at their own cost and for an unlimited period of time.

However, this sentence shall not prevent measures from being taken against specific individuals or companies that perform illegal downloads.

Further information on the full sentence may be found on the following link:

http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=rechercher&numaff=C-70/10

This sentence is of particular importance for those companies which are dedicated to providing Internet services to third parties.

On March 24, 2010, the practice for recording assignments, licences and changes of name for patents and utility models in Spain changed.From now on, it will be possible to make these recordals by submitting the following documents:
1) ASSIGNMENTS & LICENCES

1. The original assignment or licence document with the signatures of the parties, legalised by Notary Public and with the Apostille or corresponding Consular legalisation; or


2. a copy of document a) notarised and legalised with the Apostille or corresponding Consular legalisation; or


3. a certificate of assignment or licence form signed by the assignor/licensor and assignee/licensee without any legalisation.


4. In all cases, a power of attorney, signed by the applicant, who may be the assignor/licensor or the assignee/licensee, will be necessary. No legalisation of the signature will be required.

2) CHANGES OF NAME
Only a power of attorney, as above, will be required. No evidence of the change of name will be required unless the Spanish Patent and Trade Mark Office raises any reasonable doubts about the certainty of the change.As you will see, the above changes considerably simplify the burden of evidence for these recordals.These changes do not mean that in order to record an assignment, licence or change of name, it is no longer required for a formal document of assignment, licence or change of name, valid according to the laws of the country of the parties, to exist, since otherwise the recordal would be void.In addition, these changes also mean that it will no longer be necessary to show proof before the Spanish Patent and Trade Mark Office that the payment of the Tax on the Transmission of Property in Spain has been carried out.Nevertheless, the obligation to make these payments prevails and we advise that they be made in all cases, since otherwise, the Spanish Tax Authorities could very easily see that they have not been paid (by simply checking the recordal at the Spanish Patent and Trade Mark Office) and order that these taxes be paid with fines. The Spanish Tax Authorities can claim and review these payments within 4 years.
If you need any additional information about these changes or if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.