{"id":1212,"date":"2023-01-16T10:25:15","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T09:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.ballester-ip.com\/procedure-for-trademark-invalidity-and-revocation-before-the-spanish-patent-and-trademark-office-spto\/"},"modified":"2023-01-16T10:28:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T09:28:54","slug":"procedure-for-trademark-invalidity-and-revocation-before-the-spanish-patent-and-trademark-office-spto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/procedure-for-trademark-invalidity-and-revocation-before-the-spanish-patent-and-trademark-office-spto\/","title":{"rendered":"Procedure for trademark invalidity and revocation before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 14 January 2023<\/strong>, the transposition of Directive (EU) 2015\/2436 to approximate the laws relating to trademarks was completed in Spain.<\/p>\n

What does this mean?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Trademark invalidity and revocation actions may now be filed directly before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO)<\/strong> and not before civil courts, thus avoiding lenghty and costly legal proceedings.<\/p>\n

On what grounds a trademark registration may be revoked or declared invalid?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A trademark registration may be declared invalid<\/strong> on the grounds that it is not distinctive, that it is misleading, that there is a risk of confusion with a previous trademark or that the trademark has been applied for in bad faith, among other grounds.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, interested third parties may file for revocation<\/strong> of a trademark that has been registered for more than 5 years due to non-use in the last 5 years. In that case, the trademark titleholder must submit documents proving effective use in said period.<\/p>\n

What are the advantages for trademark applicants?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the event that there is a trademark registration that may interfere with the launch plans of a trademark, because it is identical or similar to the sign to be registered, a revocation action on the basis of non-use may be filed against said prior trademark, provided that it has been registered for more than 5 years. This could be a strategy to prevent said prior trademark from being a possible obstacle to the use and registration of the sign to be registered.<\/p>\n

Moreover, if a third party has registered a trademark in bad faith, the affected party may file an invalidity action before the SPTO.<\/p>\n

The main advantage of this amendment is that the trademark revocation and invalidity proceedings will be an administrative procedure instead of a court procedure, which will not only simplify and speed up proceedings but will also significantly reduce costs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What does it mean for registered trademark titleholders?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Titleholders of registered trademarks must take into account that their trademarks that have been registered for more than 5 years are vulnerable to a revocation action on the basis of non-use, <\/strong>so third parties may file a revocation action on the basis of non-use before the SPTO to cancel their trademark registration.<\/p>\n

Until now, court proceedings discouraged third parties from filing a revocation action on the basis of non-use. However, this new scenario<\/strong> will surely cause the number of these actions to skyrocket due to the simplification and cost reduction of the procedure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Ballester IP team remains at your disposal for any doubts or assistance you may need from us in relation to these new proceedings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lucas Flores<\/a> –\u00a0Attorney at law | Spanish Patent and Trademark Attorney<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

lflores@ballester-ip.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 14 January 2023, the transposition of Directive (EU) 2015\/2436 to approximate the laws relating to trademarks was completed in Spain. What does this mean? Trademark invalidity and revocation actions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-actualidad","7":"category-news-en"},"cp_meta_data":{"_encloseme":["1"],"_wpml_media_has_media":["1"],"_product_image_gallery":[""],"_disable_transparent_header":["off"],"_force_transparent_header_color":["light"],"_nectar_header_bg_color":[""],"_nectar_header_font_color":[""],"_nectar_header_bg_height":[""],"_nectar_header_bg":[""],"_cmplz_scanned_post":["1"],"rank_math_og_content_image":["a:2:{s:5:\"check\";s:32:\"2f97fdc12686d008200a148314ca5eb9\";s:6:\"images\";a:1:{i:0;i:1001;}}"],"nectar_blog_post_view_count":["165"],"rank_math_internal_links_processed":["1"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ballester-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}