The purpose of this article is to provide a practical guide on the procedures for the registration of trademarks in Paraguay.  

The procedure for the registration of trademarks in Paraguay is relatively simple. First of all, it is recommended to perform a trademark availability check, which aims at identifying possible similar trademarks that could have been applied for, in order to determine whether the registration of the trademark is feasible, or if on the contrary, its registration would be unfeasible due to similarities with other trademarks already applied for or granted.

Once the non-existence of similar antecedents to the trademark to be registered has been ascertained, the application for registration shall be prepared and filed before the National Directorate of Intellectual Property - DINAPI. Such application must contain: i) the name of the trademark, ii) the logo (if any), iii) the description of the services or products to be protected, and, iv) the name and domicile of the applicant.

Once the trademark application has been filed with the above mentioned requirements, DINAPI must carry out a formal examination in order to verify that the application meets all the formalities. Once the formal examination has been approved, the trademark application is published.

In turn, the trademark application must be published in a newspaper of circulation in Asunción for a period of three (3) consecutive days. Once the trademark application has been published, and as from the first working day following the last publication, the opposition period begins, which is 60 (sixty) working days.

Within the opposition period, any holder of a granted or pending trademark (if its application is earlier) may oppose the application for registration in writing, for duly grounded reasons, such as trademark similarity or others.

If there are no oppositions within the established term, DINAPI will carry out a substantive examination of the trademark application. The purpose of such examination is to verify that the trademark application does not fall under any of the prohibitions, such as generic signs or a trademark identical or very similar to another that may cause confusion in the consumer.

If the substantive examination by DINAPI is approved, the Director of DINAPI will proceed to grant the registration of the trademark.

The whole process takes approximately 9 to 12 months on average, if there are no inconveniences such as oppositions or others.

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