On 28 June this year, by means of the Supreme Decree No. 071-2017-PCM, the Peruvian Government approved the implementation of the Electronic Gazette of the National Institute for the Defence of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI). According with the Decree’s Complementary Transitional Provision, in this Gazette will be published: ‘(t)he trademark applications and the other industrial property elements included within the scope of the Decision 486, Common Industrial Property Regime governing Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which are at the stage of issuance of the order of publication (…)’ . This means that, from now on, all the applications for the different kinds of industrial property covered by the Andean Decision 486 will be published in the Electronic Gazette of the INDECOPI. In addition to trademarks, Decision 486 regulates patents, utility models, layout-designs of integrated circuits, industrial designs, trade names, labels or business signs, geographical designations (appellations of origin and indications of source), and trade secrets.
 
The extract of the publication includes:
a.    The application number and, if it be the case, the date of submission of the application;
b.    Name and country of the applicant; and,
c.    Complete date of any priority claimed, or a mention if a right of pre-emption has been exercised.

Depending on the type of the intangible good requested for IP protection, among others, the publication may also include the name and description of the patent, the description and/or representation of the trademark, the indication of the class and the products or services covered by the sign, and the geographical area covered by the geographical indication.

The implementation of this system represents a substantial step forward in the administration of IPRs in Peru due to its great potential for time and cost reductions. On the one hand, electronic publications can undoubtedly be done more efficiently than paper publications. Moreover, the legal terms for the IP administrative actions and procedures could be reduced, as this system operates on a daily publication basis and the legal terms start counting since the business day following the publication, thus, this would speed up the process. Consequently, as the time for the publication is reduced the time for granting an IP is reduced as well. On the other hand, before this, IP applications were published in the Official Journal el Peruano, which unlike the Electronic Gazette of the INDECOPI, is not specialised and is not free. However, unpublished applications with publishing orders issued before the Supreme Decree entered into force, can be published in either the Official Journal or the Electronic Gazette.

Given the above, the change of the publication system, from the Official Journal el Peruano to the Electronic Gazette of the INDECOPI, will certainly be of benefits to users of IP in Peru.

Post written by Florelia Vallejo Trujillo
Assistant Professor Universidad del Tolima, Colombia
PhD Candidate University of Nottingham, UK
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