To streamline trademark procedures, the National Institute of Industrial Property of Argentina (INPI) has issued a resolution that introduces a fee for applicants with pending oppositions who wish to proceed with their trademark applications.
This fee was instituted due to a significant number of applicants who chose not to engage in the opposition resolution process at the administrative level, remaining silent throughout all stages. This demonstrated a total loss of interest in their registration applications, yet forced both the Administration and the opponent to spen time and resources until the process concluded.
The main features of this measure are as follows:
– The fee must be paid by the applicant only once per trademark registration application, regardless of the number of valid oppositions the application may have received.
– Failure to pay the fee will be considered as a lack of interest from the applicant, resulting in the denial of the trademark registration application without further processing.
– For all opposition resolution processes that are still in progress and have not yet issued the respective resolution opinion, if it is found that applicants have not responded to the notification, the National Trademark Office will instruct the applicants to pay the fee within 15 business days – The deadlines regulated in this Resolution (295/2024) are peremptory and cannot be suspended or extended.