Industrial property
TRADEMARKS
A company’s success depends largely on the image perceived by its consumers. The message put across to ensure the company is recognised in the market must be protected as effectively as possible.
Consumers are attracted by brands that represent quality and reliability, and for this reason commercial trademarks, which permit products and services to be distinguished in the market, must be protected.
The Spanish Trademarks Office is the institute that protects your company’s logo, since, contrary to what is usually thought, the Mercantile Register is not the body that channels those rights. Registering a trademark or corporate logo that identifies your company gives you the exclusive right of use in order to identify your company’s business activity
That activity is classified in the INTERNATIONAL NOMENCLATURE which contains 45 classes, the first 34 of which are for products, and the rest for services.
TRADEMARKS MANAGEMENT SERVICES:
- Reports on the previous history of Spanish, community and international trademarks
- Advice on the best register
- Proccessing of Spanish, community and internacional trademark registrations
- Writs of opposition and responses to suspended registrations
- Appeals against the granting and rejection of registration applications
- Surveillance of own and competitor’s trademarks
- Maintenance, follow-up and notices of expiries
- Audits on trademark portfolios
- Drawing up of contracts for licensing the use of trademarks
- Requirements made based or priority rights
- Civil and criminal lawsuits against the infringement of rights
PATENTS
If you have developed a new product or process, you should consider the possibility of patenting it and considering it a part of your business strategy. One of the key issues for this use is the way in which a company protects the results of its innovations, that is, how it prevents other companies from taking unfair advantage of the efforts that have been made by the company responsible for the innovation. Generally speaking, companies are offered several alternatives for protecting their investments in innovation. One of these is keeping the results secret, giving rise to what is known as an "industrial secret". The difference between deciding on one system or another lies in the fact that patents always offer greater security: any unauthorised person who uses that invention could be brought to justice, irrespective of whether or not that person is aware of the existence of the patent. An industrial secret, on the other hand, offers less protection and is limited to the right to seek economic compensation from anyone obliged to keep that secret (basically employees) who discloses it or uses it to his or another person’s benefit. In other words, an industrial secret only affords protection against espionage.
PATENT MANAGEMENT SERVICES:
- Information on patents, utility models, industrial models and drawings published in the Official Industrial Patents Bulletin
- Information on the publication of European and international patent registration applications (PCT)
- Advice on and study of the best protection
- Access to Patents and Models Databases
- Studies on the infringement of rights, evaluation of patents
- Drafting of patents and utility models
- Reports on patentability
- Drafting of licence contracts governing the use of patents
- Civil and criminal lawsuits based on the infringement of rights
- Advice on unfair competition
- Monitoring of incidents and expiries
