Marcas México, protege tus ideas.

By Erick Ovalle

It has become a usual practice among trademark practitioners and applicants to request letters of consent or negotiate and enter into coexistence agreements with the owner(s) of previous registration(s) or pending application(s) whenever the same are cited by the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (MIIP) as an anticipation to any new trademark application due to the fact that the latter are being considered to be confusingly similar to the new application.

Moreover, such letters of consent or coexistence agreements, if finalized, are then filed along with the response to the office action which cited the previous registration(s) or application(s), whereby the owner of the cited mark(s) states its consideration that the eventual registration of the new application does not harm or lessen their previously acquired Industrial Property Rights.

Furthermore, the MIIP actual criteria regarding said documents is to usually accept them as a valid instrument for overcoming the anticipation(s), however, there are certain “rules” the MIIP is applying in order to evaluate said documents. Such “rules” consist, basically, that the cited mark must not be identical or contained within the proposed mark and that the products or services covered by each mark must not overlap.

In light of the above, registration of the new application is sometimes denied based on the prohibition established in the Industrial Property Law (IPL) that no identical or confusingly similar marks can coexist for the same or similar products.

The real problem arises when the MIIP denies the registration of a mark even though the existence of any such letter of consent or coexistence agreement granted or executed between related entities (i.e. affiliated companies, parent or subsidiary companies, etc.) due to financial, tax or marketing strategies, etc.

In such cases the MIIP is considering that because the marks are identical or even confusingly similar and owned by different entities such registrations must be denied, thus, harming the strategic interests of such companies by completely ignoring the will of the parties involved in such agreements.

It is the opinion of the author, that the actual MIIP’S criteria is not adequate at all and that such letters of consent or coexistence agreements should be accepted whenever the parties of said agreements prove the relationship between them, based on sufficient evidence according to article 55 of the Industrial Property Law Rules (IPLR) which establishes a series of requisites to determine if a company is related to another or pertain to the same economic group.

Therefore, the MIIP should take into account and correctly evaluate the documentation provided to support and prove the existence of any relation, and if such documents fulfill the requirements stated in the above mentioned precept, the letters of consent or coexistence agreements should be an irrefutable instrument for overcoming any such anticipation and in consequence obtain registration.

In conclusion, it is necessary that all trademark practitioners, organizations and associations of practitioners and attorneys in the field of Intellectual Property, keep pushing the MIIP through the adequate channels to accept the letters of consent or coexistence agreements as valid documents for overcoming the cited anticipations and thus obtaining registration for similar marks owned by related entities in order to fully accomplish our client’s goals and strategies for protecting their Trademark Rights within the Mexican territory.

Como todas las prerrogativas que otorga el estado, los registros de marca en México, confieren a sus titulares una serie de derechos, pero también le imponen ciertas obligaciones. A continuación se mencionan los derechos y las obligaciones a cargo del titular de un registro marcario.

Derechos:

• Derecho al uso exclusivo de la marca.
• Derecho de persecución de infractores (prohibir el uso no autorizado, por parte de un tercero, de una marca idéntica o similar en grado de confusión).
• Derecho de exigir reparación del daño y pago de daños y perjuicios.
• Derecho de obtener la expedición del dictamen técnico necesario para el ejercicio de la acción penal en caso de delito.
• Derecho de solicitar al Instituto Mexicano de la propiedad Industrial (IMPI) la práctica de medidas precautorias en caso de violación de derechos.
• Derecho de solicitar la nulidad de otros registros marcarios.
• Derecho de transmisión total o parcial.
• Derecho de otorgar licencias de uso.
• Derecho de renovar el registro.
• Derecho de renunciar al registro mediante so cancelación voluntaria.
• Derecho de ostentar la leyenda “Marca Registrada”, su abreviatura “M.R” o el símbolo ®.
• Derecho de limitar los productos o servicios amparados, en forma voluntaria.

Obligaciones:

• Usar la marca dentro de los tres años siguientes a la fecha de concesión del registro.
• Usar la marca en territorio nacional, tal como fue registrada o con modificaciones que no alteren el carácter distintivo de la misma.
• Usar la marca precisamente como marca y no tolerar que se use y/o transforme en denominación genérica.
• Efectuar la renovación cada diez años
• Usar la leyenda “Marca Registrada”, su abreviatura “M.R.” o el símbolo ® para el ejercicio de acciones civiles o penales.
• Inscribir contratos de licencia de uso de marca y franquicia.
• Inscribir contratos de cesión.
• Inscribir cambios de nombre, denominación o razón social del titular.
• Inscribir cambios de domicilio del titular o del establecimiento.

Como podemos observar de lo anterior, son mayores los derechos que concede un registro de marca que las obligaciones que impone, por lo que, si lo vemos desde ese punto de vista bien vale la pena tener uno en caso de usar una marca para los productos o servicios que prestamos. ¿Ya tienes el tuyo?

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