The Department of Commercial and Corporate Law of Belzuz Abogados, S.L.P. – Portuguese Branch shares information about the new Portuguese Industrial Property Code, which fully entered into force on July 1st, 2019.
The new Portuguese Industrial Property Code was approved by Decree-Law 110/2018 of 10 December, which transposed into the internal legal order Directive 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 , to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (the "Trademark Harmonization Directive") and Directive 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure ("Trade Secrets Directive").
Concerning the harmonization of Member States' trademark laws, the simplification of the rules of administrative procedures relating to the registration of trademarks should be emphasized with a view to making cross-border business easier.
The new legislation also recognizes the importance of trade secrets for business by adapting to trade secrets the provisions that already existed in the former Code on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of industrial property rights.
Measures to simplify, streamline and modernize administrative procedures were also introduced, clarifying some aspects that made it difficult for citizens and businesses to access and use certain legal mechanisms to ensure the protection of inventions, creations and distinctive signs, and adapting some legal regimes to the use of the digital route as a means of privileged interaction between the interested parties and the National Institute of Industrial Property.
Finally, some of the mechanisms for repressing conducts that violate industrial property rights, including the mechanisms available to those concerned, have been developed to prevent and react against infringements of the respective rights. In this regard, additional ancillary sanctions were envisaged in relation to criminal and administrative offenses, an obligation was established to inform legal owners of seizures of assets carried out by criminal police agencies and a new instrument was introduced that allows the destruction of property seized even before the judicial determination on the existence or not of an infringement of rights.
The Portuguese Industrial Property Code entered into force in a phased manner. Article 4, concerning the effects of industrial property rights conferred, entered into force thirty days after the publication of Decree-Law 110/2018, of 10 December; the provisions on the protection of trade secrets entered into force on January 1st, 2019; and all other provisions came into effect on July 1st, 2019.
The Department of Commercial and Corporate Law of Belzuz Abogados will be fully available to advise its clients on all procedures for the attribution and protection of industrial property rights.
Legal advice to companies operating in Portugal is provided by a multidisciplinary team of lawyers from Belzuz Abogados, S.L.P. – Portuguese Branch with extensive experience in topics related to corporate management and structuring, fiscal framework, labour matters, industrial and intellectual property, advertising, data protection issues and privacy.
Departamento Direito Comercial e Societário | (Portugal)
Belzuz Abogados SLP
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