Wine Law

BRIEF NOTES ON VENEZUELAN WINE LAW 519 Decision 486 41 , was in force in Venezuela. In effect, as provided in the Treaty Establishing the Court of Justice of the Andean Community, modified by the Protocol of Cochabamba 42 , Community rules enjoy supra-nationality, a characteristic manifested through their direct application and their pre-eminence. Thus, Decision 486 displaced, without derogating it, the Venezuelan Law. However, when Venezuela denounced the Cartagena Agreement in 2006 43 , Decision 486 lost its validity, and the issue of industrial property suffered a setback to the 1956 rules. Let us bear in mind that, in the application of Article 135 of the Agreement, after the denunciation of that treaty, only the commercial liberation program in the Andean economic zone would be maintained for five years. The other duties and rights would lose force immediately. In this sense, the Autonomous Service of Intellectual Property (SAPI, by its acronym in Spanish) 44 , the competent body for trademark registration, issued a decision on 5 November 2008, in which it stated that the validity of the community regulations did not imply the repeal of the Law on Industrial Property, which only saw its validity suspended by the direct and preferential application of community rules. On the occasion of Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Andean Community, the Law “leaves the state of suspension in which it was by the application of the Community Industrial Property regulations and recovers its applicability, as long as they do not contradict the Constitution” 45 . Referring to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property 46 and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) 47 , both ratified by Venezuela, in the same resolution the SAPI stated that these instruments “could not be applied directly in the substantive aspects of trademarks and invention patents, since there is no Law that has consolidated the text of such rules, nor is there a legal provision that refers to their application for the regulation of substantive aspects of trademarks and inventions”. Thus, “the acquisition of trademark rights is made in accordance with the Law on Industrial Property, where the registration is constitutive and 41 Approved in Lima on 14 September 2000, Official Gazette of the Cartagena Agreement, Year XVII, No. 600, 19 September 2000. This Decision was complemented by the Decision 865, approved in Lima, on 13 August 2008, Official Gazette of the Cartagena Agreement, Year XXV, No. 1646, 15 August 2008. 42 Special Official Gazette No. 5.187, 5 December 1997. 43 Source : http://www.comunidadandina.org/Prensa.aspx?id=1903&accion=detalle&cat=NP&title=secr etaria-general-de-la-can-recibio-comunicacion-oficial-de-retiro-de-venezuela. 44 SAPI was created by Decree Np. 1.768, 25 March 1997, Official Gazette No. 36.192, 24 April 1997. 45 Industrial Property Bulletin , No. 497, 10 November 2008. 46 Special Official Gazette No. 4.882, 30 March 1995. 47 Special Official Gazette No. 4.829, 29 December 1994.