The Federal Senate approved, on April 2nd, PLC (Complementary Bill) 86/2015, which creates rules for the special protection of highly reputed trademarks. According to the PLC, the owner of a registered trademark may request to the BPTO the recognition of its high reputation at any time.
In the Committee for Science, Technology, Innovation, Communication and Information Technology (CCT), the project also added a device determining that the recognition of high reputation has a 10-year validity period, and that the application for renewal must be filed with recent data justifying it. On the other hand, it allows third parties with a legitimate interest to contest this special protection at any time.
Text may still return to the Chamber of Deputies – The Senate also included the prediction that the factual recognition of this high reputation is given by “a large part of the Brazilian population in general”, as stated in administrative acts of the BPTO. “This is a generic and imprecise concept, inasmuch as, for such special protection, recognition by a significant portion of Brazilian consumers rather than the national population as a whole should suffice, since there is a need to protect a good of an entrepreneurial nature”, explains the co-coordinator of ABPI’s Trademark Study Committee, Rafael Atab. “The literal or very rigid interpretation of this rule could hinder the protection of famous and highly valuable brands, such as the fashion and luxury market brands”.
Since the text of the original draft has been modified, this Bill will return to the Chamber of Deputies, before going to the presidential approval.
