Intellectual property and e-commerce

摘要

Venezuelan legislation has traditionally distinguished between intellectual-property rights (IPR) and industrial-property rights. The former include literature, graphic arts, and audio and visual productions, which are protected by the 1993 Copyright Law. The latter include patents and trademarks and had been guaranteed by Decision 486/2000 of the Andean Community (Comunidad Andina-CAN) until Venezuela exited the bloc in 2011. Venezuela's departure from CAN threw the country's industrial-property regime into considerable confusion. CAN legislation had long governed intellectual- and industrial-property rights, bringing Venezuela closer to compliance with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organisation. Venezuela's exit from CAN meant a return to the previous IPR regime, based on Venezuela's Industrial Property Law of 1955. In practice, however, this has resulted in the collapse of any effective patent and trademark regime.