Border Measure

By Mirta Miyasaki

The Paraguayan General Customs Administration revoked Resolutions DNA N° 137/99 and DNA N° 101/08, which had established the creation of the TM Registration Department at the General Customs Administration and had determined the procedure for registering and verifying all merchandise presumably counterfeited to be imported exported or currently in transit through Paraguay, by the issuance of Resolution DNA N° 130.

The new Resolution DNA N° 130 (dated February 25, 2010) establishes once again the creation of a Trademark Registration Section. This Section will be dependant of the Registry Department of the Customs Procedural Direction.

As opposed to former DNA Resolution N°101 issued on 2008, the new Resolution merely covers the procedural requirements to register a TM at Customs. No reference is made to the verification procedure in case some suspicious products are found during the clearance.

Relevant issues to remark within Resolution DNA N° 130 are the following:

1) The TM owner or its representative is obliged to report to the General Customs Administration any change or modification in its right.
2) The TM owner or its representative is obliged to keep its data (contact information) updated.
3) Along with the application, graphic images of the products must be filed, in order to proceed with the visual identification of the registered TMs. The document must be in JPG format and weight no more than 500kb per file, These images will be provided to the Administration contained in a pen drive, DVD or CD.
4) The SOFIA System’s Administrator (the Paraguayan Customs alert system) will develop an electronic application for the registration of the trademarks and foresees its implementation in a term no longer than 30 days.

The Resolution is adopted by the newly and recently appointed General Customs Administrator, the second person to occupy this position since President Lugo’s assumption in office last August 2008.