Need For Trademark Protection example essay topic

As Guatemalans we have the faculty to enjoy certain rights the law establishes, but in a world that grows constantly because of globalization and technology, it's not enough to protect ourselves with human and property rights. Each day, more and more, we are in need to look out for everything that belongs to us, including our business's our ideas, our creations, and our inventions among others. "The economist experience illustrates that there's no sense in moving from physical to intellectual property". Both are so important because they belong to men and are part of their creation, this is why it's so important not to treat intellectual rights as something less important than property rights. Because of this need to protect intellectual property is that Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, and Trade Secrets have been created. All four are of great importance since they try to embrace whichever type of invention there could be, which go from the creation of an idea, to its expression and its secret formula.

In our country, the same legal system recognizes and protects the freedom of commerce and industry rights, just as inventor's rights, and ascends them to a constitutional level, consecrating them in our Magna Carta as inherent rights to the human person, which guarantees exclusiveness in the property of their creations. Besides, as a member of the World Commerce Organization, Guatemala is obliged to see that everything related with industrial property fulfills the protection standards established worldwide. For that, it requires essential normative bases to look out for an adequate shelter for these rights, for which it needs a system that responds to the resulting changes of industrial development. That is why the Intellectual Property Registry is created. This registry, before known as Industrial Property Registry, is a branch of the Ministry of Economics. In it, the following rights are described: In the Industrial Property branch: Trademarks and distinctive signs, drawings and industrial designs, protection against disloyal competition, profit models and managerial secrets.

In the Author rights branch: Contracts and minutes, phonograms, creations (literary, scientific and artistic), data base programing and broadcasting. Even though the registry covers all of the already mentioned areas, it concentrates in the following three: 1. Trademark area: its goal is to guarantee economic activities in industries and commerce against disloyal competition. In charge of it is the trademark solicitude as commercial names, expressions or advertising signs. Within this area, it's important to notice the need for trademark protection. For that, it's worth mentioning Posner's opinion on the great challenge for trademark law, which is to enable each producer to identify his own brand without increasing the cost to other producers of identifying and marketing their brands.

He establishes that the best trademark is the fanciful mark that includes invented words. Another way of naming his trademark is the "descriptive trademark", which obliges competitors to include that type of description. Both forms of trademark are included within this area of the registry, without minding the selected name, the right protects the first to register the trademark. 2. Patent area: It legally protects inventions profit models through a title or certificate of a patent and the industrial designs through a registry title. This protection is solicited by the inventor with exclusiveness for a determined period of time.

It's important to emphasize that the creation of patents can be costly for the development of inventors. This is because a lot of times people tend to patent any invention including logical things that anybody else could have thought of. From the economic point of view, we can compare the two theories that explain why patents are or are not useful. On one side, we have Posner, who considers it's necessary to patent creations because it serves as in incentive to inventors.

From his point of view, there should be five devices that minimize the cost of duplicating inventive activity that a patent system invites. By using them, the cost can be reduced and the inventors will be given the protection they need. These five devices are: twenty year limit, fundamental ideas are not patentable, the patents are granted early, and must show not only that his invention is non obvious and novel, but also useful. On the other hand, we have Palmer, who contrary to Posner establishes that patents shouldn't exist due to the technology with which the market is managed. He also sustains the idea that an inventor doesn't need the incentive of a twenty year long patent to create, a competitive market is better. 3.

Copyrights area: its function is to guarantee the juridical security of the author. It makes sure that the documents, pieces and acts get the adequate advertising through their registration. It's important no notice that even though in Guatemala there is a registry that looks after the fulfillment of rights in these three areas, it yet doesn't count with a written document that identifies the above. On top of that, the system is so inefficient that its function can easily be disturbed. This is why there are continuous cases of falsifications, theft of inventions or expressions and even corruption in the transaction procedure.

If we look carefully at the process it follows, we can see that it is long and inefficient. This is all because anyone who is interested has to fill a form that lets them find the already registered trademarks or patents. For that, they have to pay an amount that varies between Q 100 and Q 300. After filling the form, they can look for similar trademarks, for which process there are six persons in charge, if they couldn't find a similarity, they should request another form for subscription. This last form requires a fee of Q 110. The form then has to be examined along with all the documents it includes, this takes approximately one week.

Then it is necessary that the applicant makes three publishes in "El Diario Oficial" during a period of fifteen days, if no problem arouses and everything seems to be in order, he should pay Q 90 for the corresponding annotation. Finally, the applicant has to pay Q 50 to acquire the physical property title. As we can see, the time, cost and procedures implied in the process are too many and this usually brings along another important problem: bureaucracy. Both private and public institutions look for ways to decrease costs and time. The transaction costs that the registry of a trademark implies, makes the system inefficient and leads it to corruption in the process. A big problem is that Guatemala is on the verge of opening its doors to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which makes us aware that with the actual system the country counts with to register its trademarks, we are not merely prepared to make front to new the companies that will want to register their intellectual rights in Guatemala.

This goes to show that in Guatemala, we need to take measures so that it becomes easier to carry out the transaction process so that we can collaborate in the accomplishment of such agreement and in the development of the nation's economic development. If there was a more efficient process to register trademarks, being through the Internet or even in the same registry, a lot of problems could be avoided. An example is what happened with Cervecer " ia R'io, who is recently joining the Guatemalan market to eliminate Cervecer " ia Centroamericana's monopoly. With the next example it's easy to understand the need for a good system and how it handles both its national and international problems. When soft drink company, Pepsi Cola, joined the Brazilian brewery, Ambev, they decided to introduce the leading Brazilian beer to Guatemala's market. Cervecer " ia Centroamericana, who was known all this years for being the only company to produce beer felt threatened.

They also knew that if Ambev entered the market their sales would decrease and their monopoly would end instantly. Meanwhile, Ambev has to deal with great obstacles that Cervecer " ia Centroamericana has laid on their way. One of them was that when Cervecer " ia Centroamericana found out that Ambev was bringing competition, made the necessary arrangements to register every possible name Ambev could want to use, and among these names was "Brama", which was the brand with which they wanted to launch their beer in the Guatemalan market. This made the Brazilian company look for different names to give their beer while they filed a law suit against Cervecer " ia Centroamericana.

This goes to show the problems that can arise if the system lacks efficiency, for it should not only make public every national brand there is on the marker, but every international brand that could join our economy any day. This is a case that represents one of the many in this scope. Many people register international brands that could want to come in the Guatemalan market so that they can later sell them to their original owners. As we could see, the intellectual rights topic is very important because it represents a great deal of people that need for them to be protected and taken care of.

For that, it's not enough to count with a Registry in the country, but to have an actualized version to make it every day more and more efficient as technology moves into the future. This way Guatemala could be ready to face changes globalization brings along to attract new investment as what CAFTA is doing for the country.