In the last years of the pandemic, the registration of local brands grew, mainly from entrepreneurs

That there was a “pandemic effect” on trademark registration applications in the country in the last two years, says the director of the National Service for Intellectual Rights (Senadi), María Gabriela Campoverde, as this indicator did not fall despite the fact that the economy was affected by the lockdowns and that the reactivation has been slow. Rather went up.

“There is an increase in trademark registration in 2020 and 2021. During the pandemic, many people lost their jobs and had to resort to product and service ventures; some companies changed their lines of business, for example, they began to manufacture antibacterial gels or alcohol… All this generated an increase in patents and trademarks in Ecuador and in the world,” she explains.

According to figures from the agency, in 2019 there were 12,289 requests for national brands and 7,061 foreign ones; in 2020, the national ones rose to 12,445 and the foreign ones fell to 6,328; while in 2021 (cut to November), the local ones exceeded the numbers of 2019 with 12,725 and the foreign ones recovered reaching 6,964.

According to Campoverde, the areas in which there was the greatest increase in requests for trademark registration were food, medicine (including vitamins and food supplements) and hygiene and cleaning services.

And also in copyright. “In the area of ​​cultural and artistic creation, the same thing happened: many artists lost their jobs and turned to other types of activities or services; Some with whom we have had conferences or talks have mentioned that (confinement) was an important time in which they were able to concentrate on their work in a certain way, because the creator needs silence, an escape and they took it that way and published new works or they made new designs”, he refers.

Zenny Cun, 44, and her daughter Estefanía Cedeño, 24, and Julio César Cortés, 39, are examples of these situations. Their ventures emerged before the COVID-19 pandemic, but with it hitting hard, they decided to start the process of registering their trademarks with Senadi.

Picatto Gourmet is the name of the canned products and jams of Cun and Cedeño. Estefanía says that her mother was unemployed and she had a part-time job at a travel agency, so they started their business in 2019 with the participation in some fairs and they did well. But sales fell as a result of the strike in October of that year and then with the pandemic. There were desperate moments when they had no income, says the young woman, but in recent months they have managed to reactivate little by little. His process in the Senadi has not yet concluded, they hope that it will come out in a couple of months. They have also sought to obtain health certifications so that their products have higher sales.

Cortés, on the other hand, has already completed the registration of its Escaladio brand. He is an architect and makes scale replicas of emblematic soccer stadiums in Ecuador and the world. He started his business more than two years ago when he lost his job. He says that at first it did not seem urgent to him to register his brand and his designs, but last year the doors of two international markets were opened to him to place his mini-stadiums through two partners: Argentina (a soccer-loving country par excellence) and Spain. And then he saw it necessary to do it; Your process is complete.

Cedeño and Cortés comment that the idea of ​​inscribing the distinctives of their businesses came from the specialists of Épico, the Municipal Public Company for Management and Competitiveness, where they went to ask for advice.

Catalina Vera, its Director of Entrepreneurship and expert in intellectual property, expresses that currently many entrepreneurs sell their products through social networks and stores online. “In this virtual world, intellectual property rights are very fragile,” he says; and adds that the procedure in the Senadi aims to “protect” and that no one “take their name and take advantage of all the effort they are making.”

But the recommendation and accompaniment of Épico in this sense is not for all those who receive the training, but for those who already have a clear idea of ​​the value proposition of their business. This is because the procedure has a cost and if the entrepreneur does not want to lose that money, he must ensure that all his documents are complete and there is an exhaustive preliminary investigation so that his trademarks or distinctives are challenged. (I)

How to register a trademark

1. Catalina Vera, from Épico, suggests starting with an investigation on social networks regarding whether there are similar names, logos, colors and designs. On the Senadi website there is a free phonetic search engine in which you can check what exists in the records, but if the entrepreneur wishes to do something more formal, he can request information, which has a cost of $ 16.

2. With this information, the procedure is entered, which costs $208.

3. According to María Gabriela Campoverde, director of Senadi, there are 50% discounts for entrepreneurs and mypimes on both rates.

4. The registration of a trademark can last from six to nine months; According to the documentation that the business owner has delivered, the more complete and fewer errors it has, the shorter the process. The registration process includes a challenge stage in which all owners of one of them can file objections.

5. The validity period of a trademark is ten years; can be renewed. (I)