ASTI heralds new vintage of collective marks

The Trademark Office (TO) has granted the first collective trademark registration since the implementation of the Paraguayan Trademark Law in 1998. The TO allowed the Consortium for the Protection of Asti's (Consorzio per la Tutela dell'Asti) request to register ASTI as a collective mark for a type of Italian sparkling wine.

The Trademark Law defines collective trademarks as "any sign used to indicate the origin or any other common characteristic of products or services of different companies that use the trademark under the control of its owner". Chapter XII of the law regulates the granting of collective trademarks under the following requirements:

• Legally authorized entities may request the registration of collective trademarks for the use of their members.
  
  
• Upon filing for registration, the owner must clearly indicate the collective character of the mark and attach the rules for its use.
  
  
• The application must be published with a summary of these rules, including the mark's essential conditions of use.
  
  
• Any modification of the rules of use must be notified to the TO, and published and recorded in order to have legal effect against third parties.

After examining these provisions, the TO held that the consortium had met all the requirements, and allowed its application for registration of ASTI as a collective mark in Class 33 of the Nice Classification, covering wines and sparkling wines.

The TO has also allowed an application for registration of the DER GRÜNE PUNKT device (a famous mark made up of two green arrows) as a collective trademark in a number of different classes. It is expected that these decisions will signal a wave of collective mark registrations.

Adriana Casati, Berkemeyer Attorneys & Counselors, Asuncion