Industrial Property

On April 26th and 27th, it was held the 1st Angolan Congress of Industrial Property, organized by Ponto de Vista, in partnership with Inventa International and the Angolan Institute of Industrial Property (IAPI).

Some of the main changes relating to trademarks in Mexico, approved last month, introduce more flexibility on the registration requirements.

The “Brexit” referendum took place a year and a half ago and the terms for the withdrawal began being formally discussed since March last year. Intellectual Property rights had to be - rightly so - part of the debate.

In the light of EU and UK Government’s most recent draft agreement on the country’s withdrawal from the European Union - published March 19th - provisions were made on the protection and enforcement of IP rights, to be of effect after the end of the transitional period.

We hereby announce that the Angolan PTO published a notification, requesting all applicants and/or attorneys of trademark applications numbered from 5001 (five thousand and one) to 20.757 (twenty thousand, seven hundred and fifty seven) to present the following documents in order to update the files respective to these trademarks:

   - Copy of the official filing receipt or application request;
   - Power of Attorney or Proxy;
   - Certificate of Incorporation, proving the company's commercial activity in its native country;

Due to the discrepancy of the Angolan legal framework with the needs of an efficient protection system, the current Law on Industrial Property, approved February 28th, 1992, is outdated in relation to the advances occurred in the global Industrial Property Systems. Today, technological innovation represents the economic segment that has grown the most and has greatly contributed to the economic development of countries.

This new Law had a notorious inspiration in the Portuguese Law, from which many solutions were adopted, making a revision of the law previously in force (Law no. 4/2001, 31 December and Decree no. 6/2004, 30 June) that needed some alterations due to the evolution of the current needs in what concerns Intellectual Property matters.

According to Circular 1/2017 issued by the Angolan IP Office, past February 13th 2017, the 11th edition of the Nice Classification is being applied since January 1st 2017. This Classification applies to groups of goods and services for trademark protection purposes, as published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

As such, all new Angolan trademark applications shall respect the amendments to the 11th edition of the Nice Classification.