On June 3, 2019, Resolution INPI No. P-123/19, published in the Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic (May 23), which complements Regulatory Decree No. 242 of April 1, 2019, will enter into force.
The new resolution is divided into four titles.
The first one deals with the filing of the application for a new trademark which, although it does not change the current filing form, clarifies -as a general principle- that registration applications will continue to be processed individually. This means that an application is filed for each class of the Nice classification in which a trademark registration is sought and, consequently, those applications that include more than one class will be rejected.
The second title regulates the affidavit of mid-term use, the purpose of which is to improve the information on the effective use of registered trademarks and to discourage the future registration of trademarks for speculative purposes and thus promote the protection of industrial property and productive development. This mid-term affidavit of use must be filed within the sixth year of validity of the trademark and will have an exceptional term, expiring in January 2020, for those who, according to the law, would have been obliged to file it. Also, next Monday, the INPI will publish the filing procedure and the suggested text for the affidavit on its website.
Failure to file such affidavit will result in an extraordinary fee for each year in default and, in case the registration is renewed, will prevent the processing of such renewal until such affidavit is complied with.
The third title establishes a new term for the filing of trademark renewal applications, which may now be filed within six (6) months prior to their expiration and up to six (6) months after such expiration, paying -as the case may be- the corresponding fee.
The last title temporarily maintains the current system of notifications but, in order to speed up the process, it reduces the suspension period for answering hearings and challenging resolutions from sixty (60) to thirty (30) days. This suspension does not apply to answer notices of the opposition resolution procedure, which will not have any suspension period.
Other clarifications of the decree are the automatic extensions to answer substantive hearings. Now they are reduced to two: the first one of ten (10) days and the second one of five (5) days, in both cases.
