TRADEMARKS

Luis Alberto Martinez Calderon

TRADEMARKS

Stage 2 - Intellectual property

Definition

It is the commercial name of a product, or company recognized in a legal and juridical way since it has been registered with the competent authority, and whose creator is the only one who can make use of it. It is a unique symbol or word used to represent the business or its products. Once registered, the same symbol or series of words cannot be used by another organization, as long as it is still in use and the papers and taxes are in order.

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Colombian office in charge of registering

Example

To protect a trademark it is necessary to register it, for which an application is submitted to the national or regional intellectual property (IP) office. In some countries it is also possible to obtain rights to a trademark through use. File an application for patent protection, or keep it as a trade secret. Although sometimes the answer is not obvious, in many cases the following questions can help companies clarify their ideas to find the best solution.

In Colombia, to protect the intellectual property of trademarks and commercial slogans, it is necessary to register with the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce (SIC). For this, the entity has a procedure that includes a series of formal requirements that must be verified.

Registration Process

The trademark registration is an administrative procedure that is carried out before the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce and consists of the following stages

Fee? How much does it cost?

To do the trademark registration, you have to pay a fee. The value of the trademark registration fee for the year 2022 is set at 1.003.500 COP, approximately 229 USD.

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Registration Process

1) Presentation of the application, 2) Examination of form, 3) Publication, 4) Oppositions of third parties and 5) Substantive examination. This process lasts approximately eight (8) months, in case there are no obstacles, such as oppositions by third parties.If you want to register a trademark, you must follow these steps:

• Debe realizar una búsqueda de antecedentes, para verificar que la marca que desea registrar no haya sido registrada por otra persona.
• Deberá pagar las tarifas vigentes establecidas por la Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio.
• Complete los elementos solicitados en el formulario de solicitud.
• Finalmente deberá adjuntar los documentos requeridos por la Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio.

“«secreto comercial»: la información que reúna todos los requisitos siguientes:

ser secreta en el sentido de no ser, en su conjunto o en la configuración y reunión precisas de sus componentes, generalmente conocida por las personas pertenecientes a los círculos en que normalmente se utilice el tipo de información en cuestión, ni fácilmente accesible para estas; tener un valor comercial por su carácter secreto; haber sido objeto de medidas razonables, en las circunstancias del caso, para mantenerla secreta, tomadas por la persona que legítimamente ejerza su control.”