Durán-Corretjer SLP

On October 5, 2023, the European Patent Office (EPO) celebrated the 50th anniversary of the European Patent Convention, an agreement that was signed on October 5, 1973 and through which the European Patent Organization and the European Patent Office (EPO).

To commemorate this historical milestone, the EPO had the participation, among others, of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands; Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission; Rumen Radev, President of Bulgaria; and Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany.

Likewise, on the occasion of the anniversary, the EPO took the opportunity to present the Observatory on Patents and Technology, a public-private forum to address new trends and technologies in intellectual property and face future challenges.

The European Parliament approved by legislative resolution of September 12, 2023 the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of geographical indications of craft and industrial products thanks to the political agreement reached with the Council of the EU last May.

It will now be up to the Council of the EU to formally approve said Regulation, which will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU and will be applicable within two years from the aforementioned publication.

The objective pursued by the adoption of this new Regulation is to uniformly protect geographical indications designating craft and industrial products with a given quality, reputation or other characteristic linked to their geographical origin.

We are proud to announce that DURÁN-CORRETJER, S.L.P.  has been recognized by clients and peers as one of the Europe’s Leading Patent Law Firm for 2023.

The total overall list of 177 recommended firms offer services of patent attorneys for different areas of industrial expertise, namely chemistry & pharmaceuticals, electrical engineering & physics, mechanical engineering, biotechnology, food & healthcare, materials & nanotechnology and IT & Software.

They were ranked in three classes: gold (very frequently recommended), silver (frequently recommended) and bronze (recommended).

In this regard, DURÁN-CORRETJER, S.L.P. was listed silver under the Electrical Engineering & Physics category and bronze under the IT & Software category.

Christian Durán, member of the Law Committee and Membership Committee, attended to the 41st ECTA Annual Conference on June 28th, 29th and 30th and July 1st, 2023.

During the conference, several interesting topics were discussed, such as the reform of the Designs Directive and Regulation on Community Designs or the convergence projects CP13 (trade mark applications made in bad faith) and CP14 (trade marks contrary to public policy or accepted principles of morality).

On March 1st, the transitional period for the implementation of the Unified Patent Court (hereinafter referred to as the UPC) began. Only European Patent Attorneys who have passed a special qualification examination in European Patent litigation may act as representatives before this Court.

We are pleased to inform that three European Patent Attorneys of our firm, who have passed such qualification certificate, have already been registered as representatives before the above mentioned UPC, and therefore our firm is already qualified to act as representative before this new international Court.

Last February 13, 2023, the Government of Brazil deposited its instrument of accession to the 1999 Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement bringing the total number of countries covered by the Hague System to 96.

Brazil becomes the 71st contracting party to the 1999 Act and 79th member of the Hague Union.

As from August 1, 2023, users of the Hague System can already apply for international protection of designs in Brazil in international applications.

The Judges of the Commercial Courts of Barcelona (Commercial Court of Barcelona and the Judges of the Commercial Courts of Alicante (Trademark Courts of the European Union) in their joint meeting on December 1, 2022, have adopted a Protocol on-call service and rapid response between the days of February 27 to March 2, 2023, on the occasion of the celebration in the city of Barcelona of the Mobile World Congress, the most important world congress in the communication and mobile telephony.

This Protocol is provided for those cases of possible conflicts between the companies participating in this event that could give rise to a request for precautionary measures, the objective being to avoid as much as possible adopting said measures without hearing the defendant; and at the same time, to guarantee the adoption of effective measures to protect their intellectual property rights.

Among the measures that have been adopted, reference is made to the preferential and priority processing of interim injunctions petitions and/or verification of facts proceedings, urgent precautionary measures (with or without a hearing), the commitment to resolve within a period of two days (48 hours) the requests for interim injunctions petitions and/or verification of facts proceedings, to resolve on the same day of their presentation (24 hours) the admission of requests for protective letters and to adopt, ex officio or at the request of a party, the specific measures necessary to preserve the confidentiality of information that may constitute a trade secret.

We are proud to announce that Luis-Alfonso Durán has been included in the GOLD category of trade mark prosecution and strategy matters by the prestigious ranking published by WORLD TRADE MARK REVIEW, a directory that recognizes the best professionals in the sector in the world.

On November 24, 2022, Belize deposited with WIPO its instrument of accession to the Madrid Protocol.

This Protocol will enter into force on February 24, 2023. As of this date, it will be possible for companies and trade mark owners that export their products and/or provide services in Belize to request the protection of their trade marks through this international registration system.

The President of the Board of Appeals of the UPC and the interim President of the Administrative Committee have announced the delay in the entry into force of the UP and the UPC foreseen for 1 April 2023.

The new date, foreseen for 1 June 1 2023 implies that the Sunrise period for requesting opt outs of European patents will also be delayed from 1 January 1 2023 to 1 March 1 2023.