An Official Notification from the Venezuelan Patent and Trademark Office (SAPI) issued on September 1st 2016, publicized a report about the recent problems affecting the regular acceptance of foreign payments related to different procedures, including final fees for granting of trademark and patent registrations, trademark renewals, changes of name and/or address on patents or trademarks files, as well as the filing fee and first annuity for patents.
According to the official announcement, the Venezuelan PTO recognized the existence of problems (technical failures) concerning the receipt of wire transfers to their bank account at Citibank (USA). As a result, the PTO established a policy under which any procedure approaching a deadline period must be notified by means of a Writ addressed to the Registry. Such Writ will be officially received and stamped by the Registry and the applicants will be notified as soon as the bank issues are resolved in order to process the pending payment of the official fees.
The above described problem with the bank account of the Venezuelan PTO was detected on August 15th 2016 after many IP owners and Agents received return transfer notices from their banks and the situation is affecting in particular the payment of official fees for those trademarks registrations granted in the Official Bulletins No. 564 and 565; while in general the situation is affecting any instruction related to change of name or address, assignments, renewals and new patent applications, all in filings belonging to foreign IP owners. By now, and until the described issue is resolved, only those renewals facing an immediate deadline or new patent applications with a priority approaching the deadline will now be processed under the above described procedure.
Cástor González-Escobar
castor@grlexamericas.com
Partner
Click Here to see a copy of the Official Announcement
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