BUSINESS BRIEF: BARBADOS
BUSINESS BRIEF: BARBADOS
Patents How do you register or secure patent rights, and is national or international coverage most appropriate? Patents are granted for new inventions (worldwide novelty) that express an inventive advance and are industrially
applicable.
Disclosure by the applicant within one year preceding the date of application is not a bar to novelty. Some ‘inventions’ are excluded: discoveries;
scientific theories; mathematical methods; games; business schemes; surgical or therapeutic treatments; diagnostic methods; biological processes and immoral or environmentally prejudicial inventions. Products for use in surgical or
therapeutic treatments and
diagnostic methods are patentable. Te period for entering the national phase under the Patent Cooperation Treaty is 30 months. Local inventors are encouraged to file international applications using WIPO’s International Bureau. Te inventor must always be identified. An
applicant that is not an inventor must state his entitlement to the grant (eg, by assignment, inheritance or employment). Foreign applicants must be represented by a local patent agent. Documentary requirements include a power
of attorney; specification; drawings; statement of ownership or assignment; copies of any communication, decision or search relating to the invention and priority documents. All non- English words or documents must be translated into English. Te grant lasts 20 years from the filing date.
Annuities become payable from the second year aſter the filing date; late payment within six months attracts a penalty. Tere is no opposition procedure. Licences must be registered. A compulsory licence may be granted if an invention is not being sufficiently used—eg, by importation.
Proceedings for invalidation and infringement, and appeals against a compulsory licence, lie with the High Court by any interested person. Remedies include an injunction and/ or damages.
Trademarks How do you register or secure trademark rights and what protection do they grant? Trade, service, certification and collective marks may be registered. Te common law action of passing off provides additional protection for unregistered marks and trade dress. Marks must be visible; sound and smell marks are not permitted. Well-known marks are protected, but there is no definition or official listing of “well-known” marks. Non-English words and documents must translated and/or transliterated into
be
English. Priority may be claimed under the Paris Convention or the TRIPS Agreement, supported by a certified official copy of
the
prior application. Barbados uses the Nice Classification (10th
edition). Registration may be opposed during the 90 days following publication in the Official Gazette. Registration, and each subsequent renewal,
lasts ten years. Tere is a six-month late renewal grace period (at an additional cost). Use is not required for registration or renewal. A mark may be removed from the Trade Marks Register if it has become generic or if it has fallen into disuse for any period of five years between registration and application for removal. Changes to the owner’s name must be
recorded, supported by a certified copy of the official document effecting the change. Changes of address must also be notified, but no supporting evidence is required. Transfers of ownership must be registered. Registered owners of trade and service marks may grant licences to use their marks.
94 World Intellectual Property Review Annual 2015
Such agreements, called “licence-contracts”, must be written and signed by the parties; they need not be recorded in the Trade Marks Register, but are only enforceable against third parties if they are. A licence-contract to use a registered mark
must contain quality-control provisions, but it must not impose restrictions on the industrial or commercial use of the mark that do not derive from, or that are unnecessary for, safeguarding the rights vested by registration.
What are the key threats to trademark owners and what is the best strategy for dealing with infringement? Redress for actual or threatened infringement is by way of injunction, damages and/or an order for the erasure, removal, obliteration, delivery
or destruction of
the offending
material. Penalties for competitive offences or infringement range from a fine of $5,000 and/ or two to six years’ imprisonment, to $20,000 and/or ten years’ imprisonment; continuing offences attract additional fines of $500 per day. Infringing the trademarks or trade dress foreign businesses does occur.
of
Imported
copies may be detained at customs if the owner of the mark knows of the importation. Te owner can object to the goods’ entry and seek detention and, ultimately, destruction of infringing goods. Infringement online, where there are no
borders and transactions and identities are harder to verify, is virtually impossible to police.
Counterfeiting How big a problem is counterfeiting in your jurisdiction? What industries are particularly at threat? Anecdotally, the cultural industries (especially music and film) seem most at risk to piracy, but there is little concrete data on the extent of the problem.
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