Venezuela adopts exclusive use of the Nice Classification

By E.C.V. & ASOCIADOS

On February 10, 2020, Venezuela’s Intellectual Property Office (SAPI) issued a resolution which established the unique use and guideline for all trademark procedures of the International Nice Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification).

Since 2008 Venezuela had a dual trademark system in place which brought together the Nice Classification and a national classification, a much criticized system by the IP firms and users as it prompt double application filings and generated administrative delays and backlogs.

The Nice Classification was established by an agreement concluded at the Nice Diplomatic Conference, on June 15, 1957, and was revised at Stockholm, in 1967, and at Geneva, in 1977.

The countries party to the Nice Agreement constitute a Special Union within the framework of the Paris Union for the Protection of Industrial Property. They have adopted and apply the Nice Classification for the purposes of the registration of marks. Each of the countries party to the Nice Agreement is obliged to apply the Nice Classification in connection with the registration of trademarks, either as the principal classification or as a subsidiary classification, and has to include in the official documents and publications relating to its registrations of trademarks the numbers of the classes of the Classification to which the goods or services for which the marks are registered belong.