Cape Verde: a pocket guide to trademark renewals
Sharing its place with other phases which make up part of a trademark’s life cycle, such as the early stages of branding and filing strategy until the phase of defence of the right, maintenance is important to IP holders, expressly for peculiar systems such as the Cape Verdean one.
The year 2021 marks an important phase in trademark maintenance in Cape Verde, as it establishes the commencement of the payment of renewals in the island country.
The Cape Verdean industrial property system is still newish—the first granted trademarks started only ten years ago, a time distinguished by an effort on substantial examination of pending applications by the trademark office, the IGPQI.
Relying on fundamental features of trademark maintenance in the country, the deadlines are calculated from a trademark’s registration date, and involve an intermediary maintenance act—a declaration of intent to use (DIU), and a major maintenance act—the renewal, that are to be filed to keep registrations in force.
As for the statutory non-use period, this also runs from the date of registration and a trademark’s lapsed state shall be declared in case this has not been an object of serious use for five consecutive years.
Briefly put, a DIU is to be filed in respect to trademarks every five years, calculated from the date of registration, with a one-year time window, that starts six months before the fifth anniversary of the trademark and ending six months after the registration’s fifth anniversary.
The DIU is, however, waived in the year of the trademark’s renewal. Trademarks must be renewed every ten years, counting from the registration date, which matches the reference date of the DIU.
Per article 165 of Law Decree number 4/2007 of August 20, 2007, if the DIU is not filed, trademarks are unenforceable against third parties and are open to cancellation, which can happen following a request from a third party or if there is a conflict with third party rights.
In the event applicants fail to file the DIU, the trademarks will be deemed fully valid once again if evidence of use in Cape Verde is filed.
