Ingresar
Salvadoran cookstove invention rights will be decided in Court
By Portal & Asociados
The first practical application of the pressurized combustion and heat transfer process and apparatus, the invention was patented by Núñez and selected to participate in LAUNCH 2011 Energy Innovators, an initiative sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. space agency NASA and sportswear company Nike.
In this context, the United Nations Development Program, through its carbon-finance-related activities, supported a public-private partnership to distribute Turbococina efficient stoves to schools and households. The license holder for the technology was the Swiss-based company Soter AG and the product was distributed by Tecnologías Ecológicas Centroamericanas (TECSA), companies of which Núñez was CTO and President respectively.
An El Salvadorian socially oriented business, TECSA used an innovative business model stipulating that the company will provide the Turbococina stoves to users for free, and then recover its investment through the sale of the emission reductions in the carbon markets. The first phase of distribution involve 3,500 schools to cook the schoolchildren’s daily meals as part of the government’s Progama de Alimentacion Escolar.
However on September 17, 2014, Núñez filed a complaint before the Prosecutor's Office of El Salvador accusing businessmen Juan Cardenal Gistau, Juan Cardenal Pombo and Diego Salcedo Moore of aggravated fraud and infringement of invention privileges and intellectual property rights. Núñez complaint stated that Gistau, Pombo and Salcedo Moore illegally appropriated the intellectual property rights of his invention by making him believe that Soter AG and TECSA were of his property.
The defendants argued that between 2009 and 2012 they legally financed Núñez with over USD 800,000 to develop the project, but they never obtained any economic profits for it. After failing to reach an agreement, on September a judge decided to proceed the case to trial.
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In El Salvador, Practice Head Edy Guadalupe Portal is a partner at Eproint and has more than 25 years of experience in Intellectual Property. Since 1995, she has been recognized as the Salvadoran voice of Intellectual Property protection for always informing the IP community about changes to IP law and international treaties.
During her career, Mrs. Portal has helped numerous international law firms and in-house counsel with all facets of their IP matters in El Salvador and Central America. Her extensive practice includes work in trademarks, patents, industrial designs, utility models, copyrights, unfair competition, foreign investment, regulatory law/health registrations, licensing, franchising, appellations of origin, geographical indications, IP litigation, fashion law, new technologies, data privacy, cybersecurity, domain names, entertainment law, advertisement law, trade secrets, valuation of intangibles, and IP due diligence. She is also recognized for the great anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting results she has delivered for her clients. She also helps coordinate Latin America Intellectual Property Protection for the firm.