Region: Argentina

In <i>Cafre SA v Informática para Profesionales SRL</i> the Second Chamber of the Federal Civil and Commercial Court of Appeals has upheld a decision to cancel the defendant's registration of 'donde.com.ar'. The court held that even in the absence of evidence of bad faith, the defendant's registration prevented the plaintiff - the owner of the DONDE mark - from registering the domain name for its own use.

29 July 2003

The Buenos Aires Chamber of Appeal has increased the damages to be paid to rights owner Sassoon & Cia to compensate for the infringing use of its PIERRE CARDIN mark from Ps100,000 to Ps150,000. The court ruled that the amount should be a percentage of the infringing items' total sales and not a multiplication of a single month's record sales.

24 June 2003

In <i>Kellogg Company v Pehuamar SA</i>, the Second Federal Court of Appeals for Buenos Aires has dealt a serious blow to US breakfast cereal manufacturer Kellogg. The court dismissed Kellogg's claim for damages based on Pehuamar's alleged infringement of its CHOCOLOKO mark, and cancelled its registrations for (i) the mark MÜSLIX, and (ii) a cereal packaging design.

22 May 2003

In <i>Nortox Agroquimica SA v Nortox SRL </i>the Federal Court of Appeal has affirmed a lower court's decision to grant the plaintiff's request for (i) a recovery order that transfers the Argentine registration of the mark NORTOX from the defendant to the plaintiff, and (ii) an order cancelling the defendant's trademark and company name registrations.

29 April 2003

In <i>Microsules y Bernabo SA v Syncro Argentina SAQUIF</i>, the Federal Court of Appeal in Buenos Aires has held that two confusingly similar trademarks for the same class of goods may coexist if the products are not sold in the same places.

03 February 2003

Two recent cases - one involving the French company L'Oréal, the other involving US company American Home Products Corporation - indicate that the Argentine courts are rigorously applying the provisional measures provided by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

29 January 2003

In <i>American Home Products Corporation v Laboratorios de Investigaciones Cosméticas SRL</i>, a court in Buenos Aires has ruled in favour of the defendant who opposed the registration of a trademark to cover a class of goods different from its own.

24 January 2003

In <i>Eduardo Denkberg v Coto Cicsa</i>, an appellate court has ruled that the defendant's unauthorized use of the plaintiff's trademark frustrated the plaintiff's ability to license it in the future. The court ordered the defendant to cease using the mark and to pay the plaintiff general damages for loss of opportunity.

20 January 2003

In <i>Chivilcoy Gas (Solgas) v Totalgaz Argentina SA</i>, a federal court has found Chivilcoy Gas (and its directors) guilty of infringing the trademark rights of other gas companies by refilling their trademarked containers with its own gas.

17 January 2003

Parliament has approved a new law which requires that all prescriptionsfor medicine must be made using the medicine's international non-proprietary name. In addition, pharmacists must substitute trademarked medicine with a cheaper alternative. These measures may have the effect of weakening the trademarks of large pharmaceutical companies.

28 November 2002