Wine Law

competent authority 51 , and that it is based on the priority referred to the preference for the first application (Arts. 71 and 72 Law on Industrial Property). Following Article 32 of the same Law “the right to exclusively use a trademark is only acquired in relation to the class of products, activities or companies for which it has been registered according to the official classification, established in article 106”. Article 106(47) refers precisely to wines as an official classification. Generally, the SAPI has applied this classification, but recently, it announced that it would de-apply the national classification to all trademark applications as of 10 February 2020, and exclusively apply the international classification established by the Nice Agreement, version NCL11-2020 52 . It must be said, however, that Venezuela has not ratified the Nice Agreement. Thus, the wine produced in Venezuela will have to go through the general procedure for the registration of trademarks. To classify a particular drink as “wine”, the guidelines of the Venezuelan Commission for Industrial Standards (COVENIN, by its acronym in Spanish), must be considered. The application of these standards, whose usefulness is reiterated in consumer protection, would be based on a SAPI decision that admits the application of these standards to the classification of a drink as “rum” 53 . Thus under the COVENIN 3342: 1997 Standard 54 , wine “is the alcoholic beverage resulting from the total or partial alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes or their musts. Its natural graduation may not be less than 7° Gay-Lussac nor greater than 14° Gay-Lussac” [Art. 3(3)]. According to the same CONVENIN Standard, wine can be fine or special, whose specific characteristics are given by the grapes from which it comes, the production techniques and the specific oenological practices [Art. 3(3)(1)]. It could be a liquor, when it has an alcoholic strength greater than 14° Gay-Lussac, without exceeding 20° Gay-Lussac, coming from the alcoholic fermentation of the grape juice or must, with or without ethyl alcohol [Art. 3(3)(2)]. It can also be dry wine, which contains up to 5 g/l of residual sugars [Art. 3(3)(3)] or semi-dry or doomed if it 51 On that note, “(…) the constitutive character of the registry, creator of rights, is an act of concession that has ex- nunc effectiveness, that is, exclusively towards the future”. Badell Madrid, Rafael, Comentarios sobre la normativa vigente en materia de propiedad industrial, in : https://www.badellgrau.com/?pag=60&ct=962. 52 Special Industrial Property Bulletin , 10 February 2020. 53 Industrial Property Bulletin , No. 459, 4 November 2003. 54 Source : http://www.sencamer.gob.ve/sencamer/normas/3342-97.pdf.