Título VII. Disposiciones transitorias y finales

Applications that are in process on the date of entry into force of this Law shall continue to be processed in accordance with the procedure established in the legislation in force on the date of their filing, but the registrations, recordals or patents resulting from such applications shall be governed by the provisions and shall be granted for the time limits established by the present Law.

Applications that, on the date of entry into force of this Law, are pending notification for reasons not attributable to the Registry, shall be notified in accordance with the procedures established for that purpose by the Civil and Commercial Procedural Code.

Without prejudice to the provisions of Article 211, the provisions of Articles 15, 93, 109, 121, 122 and 123 of this law shall be applicable to patent applications pending upon entry into force of this law. The time limit for proving before the Registry that the deposit has been made in accordance with Article 109 shall be two months counted from the date of entry into force of the present law.

Patent applications filed in accordance with paragraph eight of Article 70 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Annex 1C of the Marrakesh Agreement), approved by Decree Number 37-95 of the Congress of the Republic, shall be processed with absolute preference and in accordance with the provisions of the present law, applying the patentability criteria established therein, as if they had been in force on the filing date of such applications.

The provisions contained in Articles 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119 and 120 hereof may be applied to a patent application filed while the Law on Patents for Invention, Utility Models, Industrial Drawings and Designs (Decree-Law Number 153-85) was in force, which is pending and in which experts have not been appointed, provided that the applicant so requests. For such purpose, the request shall be formulated in writing with signature legalized by a notary and filed within the three months following the date of entry into force of this law. *Last paragraph added by Article 2 of Decree Number 76-2002 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala. *The last one repealed by Article 3 of Decree Number 09-2003 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala.

Distinctive signs registered in accordance with prior laws and whose time limits had not expired at the time of entry into force of this law shall retain the validity granted to them by such laws during the time limits for which they were granted or for which they had been renewed. The term of patents and registrations for industrial designs that have not expired at the time this law enters into force may be extended to the maximum time limits established in articles 126 and 159 thereof, upon written request that the holder must file with the Registry at least two months prior to the expiry of the original term of the patent or registration.

Subsequent renewals of such registrations, where applicable, shall be carried out in accordance with the provisions of this law and shall be governed thereby; consequently, patent and registration annuities shall be calculated and paid in accordance with the fees in force on the date of payment.

Registrations of advertising expressions or signs effected in accordance with prior laws shall expire upon completion of ten years counted from the entry into force of this Law. Renewal of such registrations may be requested within said time limit and shall be processed in accordance with the provisions of this Law.

Judicial actions of a civil nature in matters regulated by this law that had been commenced prior to its entry into force shall continue until their decision in accordance with the provisions under which they were commenced.

Within a time limit of one year from the entry into force of this Law, the Prosecutor General of the Republic shall create and organize a Prosecutor's Office for Crimes against Intellectual Property.

Foreign geographical indications or appellations of origin for which protection has been requested pursuant to the provisions of a treaty signed by the State of Guatemala shall be governed by the procedure established in the Industrial Property Law

The national appellations of origin that are currently registered and protected shall adapt their registration to the provisions of this Decree with regard to the rules of use and administration and the composition of the administration body. For such purpose, the person or persons who obtained the protection shall file the corresponding application with the Register, with no payment of any fee being applicable to them. Once the adaptation referred to in this article is completed, the Register shall also make the modification regarding ownership of the protected appellations of origin, in application of the provisions of this Decree.

Article 35. Repealing Provision. Of Decree 3-2013 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala Subparagraph k) of Article 20 and the following titles “Section One. Geographical Indications” and “Section Two. Appellations of Origin”, contained in Chapter VIII of Title II of Decree 3-2013 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, are repealed.

The provisions of the Law of the Judicial Branch, the Civil and Commercial Procedural Code and the Law of Contentious-Administrative Matters shall apply suppletorily in all matters not expressly regulated by this Law.

Article 275 of the Criminal Code is amended to read as follows:

ARTICLE 275. Violation of industrial property rights. Without prejudice to applicable civil liability, whoever, without the consent of the holder of the right, performs any of the following acts shall be sanctioned with imprisonment of one to four years and a fine of one thousand to five hundred thousand quetzales:

a)Introduce into commerce, sell, offer for sale, store or distribute products or services covered by a registered distinctive sign or by an imitation or counterfeit of such signs, in relation to products or services identical or similar to those protected by the register;

b)Use in commerce a protected commercial name, emblem or advertising expression or sign;

c)Introduce into commerce, sell, offer for sale, store or distribute products or services covered by a registered distinctive sign, after having altered, substituted or removed it, in whole or in part;

d)Use, offer for sale, store or distribute products or services bearing a registered mark, similar to the point of confusion to another registered mark, after a decision ordering the cessation of use of said mark has been issued;

e)Manufacture labels, containers, wrappers, packaging or other analogous materials that reproduce or contain the registered sign or an imitation or counterfeit thereof, as well as commercialize, store or possess such materials;

f)Refill or reuse for any purpose containers, wrappers or packaging bearing a registered distinctive sign;

g)Use in commerce labels, wrappers, containers and other means of packaging or packing of products or of identification of the services of a merchant, or copies, imitations or reproductions thereof that may mislead or cause confusion as to the origin of the products or services;

h)Use or exploit another person's business secret, as well as any act of commercialization, disclosure or improper acquisition of such secrets;

i)Disclose to a third party a business secret learned by reason of their work, position, post, profession, business relationship or by virtue of a license of use, after having been warned about the confidentiality of said information;

j)Appropriate a business secret by any means, without the authorization of the person safeguarding it or of its authorized user;

k)Manufacture, produce, trade, offer for sale, place in circulation, store or possess products covered by another person's patent;

l)Employ a procedure covered by another person's patent or perform any of the acts indicated in the preceding item with respect to a product obtained directly by that procedure;

m)Manufacture, produce, commercialize, offer for sale, place in circulation, store or possess products that in themselves or in their presentation reproduce a protected industrial design;

n)Use in commerce, in relation to a product or service, a false geographical indication or one liable to mislead the public as to the provenance of that product or service, or as to the identity of the product, its manufacturer or the merchant distributing it; and

ñ)Use in commerce in relation to a product a false or misleading appellation of origin, even when the true origin of the product is indicated, a translation of the appellation is used or it is used accompanied by expressions such as type, genre, manner, imitation or other analogous expressions.

The determination of the cases covered in this provision shall be made on the basis of the applicable provisions of the Industrial Property Law.

Article 358 of the Penal Code is reformed, which shall read as follows:

ARTICLE 358. Unfair competition. Whoever performs an act characterized as unfair competition, in accordance with the provisions on that matter contained in the Industrial Property Law, shall be sanctioned with a fine of fifty thousand to one hundred thousand quetzales, except where the act constitutes an act of violation of industrial property rights criminalized in Article 275 of this Code.

Article 414 of the Criminal Code is amended to read as follows:

ARTICLE 414. Disobedience. Whoever openly disobeys an order from a public official, authority or agent of authority, issued in the legitimate exercise of the powers, shall be sanctioned with a fine of five thousand to fifty thousand quetzales.

When the Registry has the capacity to do so, it may progressively innovate the current system for the filing of applications, processing, decision and registration thereof, adopting, among other technologies, processes for microfilming of documents and/or computerization or electronic systematization.

Decree Law 153-85, Law on Patents of Invention, Utility Models, Industrial Drawings and Designs; Articles 355 and 356 of Decree number 17-73 of the Congress of the Republic; and subparagraphs b) and c) of numeral 3 of Article 24-QUATER of Decree 51-92 of the Congress of the Republic, Code of Criminal Procedure, added by Article 3 of Decree 79-97 of the Congress of the Republic, are repealed.

This Decree shall enter into force on November 1, 2000, and shall be published in the official gazette.