1 March 2013

Caribbean IP

Back in September I began a regular feature reviewing Intellectual Property in the Caribbean region.

This journey of island hopping, which also took me to Central America and the top of South America, has now ended.

The full list of the jurisdictions and their reviews is now provided:


Furthermore, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Martin and French Guiana are covered by French and Community Trade Marks (including International designations) whereas St Barthélemy is covered by French national registrations and International Registrations designating France only.

This is a region that for many years was stagnant on the IP front but there are now changes happening with many of the jurisdictions introducing new legislation over the last decade. With the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010 there was also the creation of three new trade mark jurisdictions: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (also known as the Caribbean Netherlands or the BES Islands), Curaçao and Sint Maarten.

Things will continue to change with the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands - both using the very archaic former British classification system for trade marks - expected to introduce new trade mark legislation in the next couple of years.

I did not cover St Helena in my series. This is located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean but is sometimes erroneously included with the other Saints (Kitts, Lucia, Vincent) and assumed to be in the Caribbean. Given its remoteness it is a very low volume trade mark jurisdiction but if you need any support here then do not hesitate to reach out to me.

I hope this series has been of interest and welcome comments, suggestions or questions.

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