Enrollment With Brazilian National Directory Against Trademark Counterfeiting
Published by Guerra IP
Originally published in ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law – International Action Group: International IP Update
The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recently launched the National Directory against Trademark Counterfeiting (“Directory’) in cooperation with the Brazilian National Council against Piracy (CNCP in the Portuguese acronym). The legal ground for creation of this Directory was CNCP’s Resolution No. 1 of December 2, 2013.
The Directory is an information system for tackling trademark counterfeiting. Its most important features are:
(a) a “pilot project” that is being implemented on an experimental base;
(b) the Brazilian PTO’s trademark database concerning registered marks will be automatically inserted into the Directory (including information regarding agents or at- torneys of record with the Brazilian PTO);
(c) the information in the Directory will be accessible only by enforcement authorities and not treated as confidential;
(d) use of the Directory is recommended where the trademark owner wishes to empower a different agent or attorney for enforcing the mark in Brazil (meaning that this agent is not the same agent or attorney of record listed in the Brazilian PTO) or if the trademark owner wishes to furnish additional information about its original products and branded merchandise;
(e) a specific Power of Attorney will be required (and it will not replace or revoke the Power of Attorney for the current agent or attorney of record with the Brazilian PTO);
(f) a specific form must be filled in and sent with the Power of Attorney and addi- tional documents (if any) by e-mail to the Brazilian PTO in order for the mark and rele- vant information to be inserted in the Directory (filling and submission of new forms will be required to change or update the information on the Directory); and
(g) no official fees will be charged for recording the information in the Directory until after June of 2014.
Performance of the system was set to June 2014, but it has not yet officially announced and the system is still in force free of official charges.
This Directory will allow the enforcement authorities in the possession of any apprehended counterfeits to communicated to the agent or attorney registered with the Directory (the default option for communication will be the agent or attorney of record with the Brazilian PTO) and take any appropriate action.
