On August 5, 2022, the Colombian Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) issued Resolution 51804 of 2022, by which it added provisions related to applications for registration and transfer of distinctive signs of entities belonging to the same business group, to its Single Memorandum. In this regard, it establishes that when the authority carries out the examination of trademark registrability, it must take into account whether the precedents that prevent the registration or transfer of said sign belong to the same business group as the applicant, in which case, registration will not be understood as affecting the rights of a third party. (In this regard, bear in mind that there is a business group when: (i) there is a situation of control, that is, the decision-making power of a company depends on the will of another person or persons, and (ii) when there is unity of purpose and direction between members of the business group. Regarding this last requirement, the Colombian Superintendence of Corporations has established that it refers to all companies pursuing the same objective that has been set by the controlling company, without this preventing each of the companies from individually performing their corporate purpose and activities.)

For these cases, the resolution established that applicants have the obligation to inform the superintendence of the business group to which they belong. However, in the event that the applicant is a foreign person, they must provide: (i) a statement signed by the applicant’s legal representative or by any of the legal representatives of the member companies of the business group,  in which the existing unity of purpose and direction is exposed, and (ii) a document issued by the competent authority of the country to which the foreign person belongs, which also specifies the existing unity of purpose and direction among the members of the business group. Finally, it’s important to bear in mind that this resolution will come into force on September 1st of the current year.

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