Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

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This document will study how the grounds for trademark unregistrability of article 137, Decision 486, is being applied in Colombia over time. It is relevant to delve into the subject because the cited rule enables the national office to deny a trademark registration if it has prima facie evidence to infer that the application seeks to commit unfair competition acts. Therefore, an extensive analysis of Article 137 under the developments made through prejudicial interpretations by the Court of Justice of the Andean Community is made, and a chronological investigation on the changes in the application of the rule since the issuance of the Sole Circular of the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce, the amendments that modify the scope on the application of this rule, and some pronouncements issued by the Colombian authority which demonstrate different ways of interpretation.  Additionally, it is addressed the examiner's responsibility as regards the preventive nature of his registrability analysis. Finally, it is concluded that the examiner must conduct a broad study on the application for registration that goes beyond a simple study of unregistrability, analyzing other market elements of unfair competition. Otherwise, he would be omitting the scope of his functions and the correct application of the rule.

Through an analysis-synthesis methodology, this work will try to answer the following question: What is the appropriate scope of the norm that prevents the registration of a trademark for copyright infringement? To do so, we will begin with the background of Article 136 in Andean Decision 486 of 2000. Subsequently, we will delve into relevant aspects of the use of artistic works as distinctive signs —for example, whether typographic fonts are framed in this type of works— and how letters, words and the way they are grouped relate to copyright. Afterwards, we will descend to the study of sounds that are used as trademarks, how they are linked to related rights, and how this point of contact usually goes unnoticed. We will also address the need to see beyond fiction and ideas when we talk about the protection of characters, moving quite far from the traditional position on the protection of titles of works and how this issue has been understood with respect to the norm that prevents the registration of a trademark for copyright infringement. We will discuss whose consent should be requested, its content, and how to apply the presumption of authorship and ownership in these cases. Finally, some clarifications on the registration of trademarks using works in the public domain and regarding the independence of actions for copyright infringement and the nullity of trademark registration will be provided.

The Court of Justice of the Andean Community is the jurisdictional authority in charge of interpreting the rules established in the Andean region, an interpretation that is binding on the internal bodies of member countries due to the principles of supra-nationality and direct application of Andean Law. Decision 486 of 2000 generically establishes the concept of unfair competition related to industrial property, around which this article will present a doctrinal reconstruction based on the preliminary interpretations of the Andean Court and the doctrine of the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce of Colombia, to finally propose some points of integration between the concept managed by these entities. This article summarizes the results of a qualitative research with a dogmatic approach supported by a specialized documentary technique, where it is concluded that both doctrines must be integrated to adequately observe the principles of the Andean Law.

Andean Decision 486 of 2000 incorporated several provisions related to the enforcement and protection of industrial property rights. However, said enactment did not regulate measures for gathering evidence of infringement. This paper aims to show how the Colombian practice has addressed these measures by means of Prelitigation Discovery Motions and how there is a possible need to regulate this matter under Andean Law.

This work seeks to analyze drinking water supply in the province of Buenos Aires during the coronavirus pandemic. Buenos Aires is the most important province in the Argentine Republic in terms of population, and although it has numerous companies providing the water supply service, there is a notorious inequality in the access to this resource in some parts of the territory. This work adopted a qualitative research approach that combines the systematization and analysis of primary data, collected through documentary observation and in-depth interviews to key informants, as well as secondary statistical data and information on the legislation of the sector. In the context of the pandemic, the preventive actions established by the Argentinian State emphasized the importance of water availability within the authorized protocols for the performance of different health, productive, educational, and recreational activities. However, despite the actions established for protecting the rights of water service users, the situation of the population without access to water in this province was not considered.

In Colombia, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people were in strict confinement between March and September 2020, which forced families to perform all their daily life activities at home. Within this context, the changes in consumption and coping strategies are topics of interest because of their implications on human health and wellbeing. Colombia has two main territorial zones: a continental platform and a group of islands in the Caribbean, composed of the archipelago of San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina. The continental zone, despite the diversity between regions, has common patters, while the insular territory has a strong cultural particularity bot in its social structure and regarding its Raizal population. Based on this reality, our research seeks to identify the differences between a Colombian group of people from the continental and island territories regarding the changes in their consumption habits and coping strategies during the quarantine due to COVID-19. Methodologically, this is a quantitative descriptive study, with the participation of 1,252 Colombian men and women, all of them above 18 years and residents of the continental or island zones of the country. According to our results, insular inhabitants consumed more food and medicines than those from the mainland, who, in turn, consumed more alcoholic beverages and made more online purchases. Men consumed more alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, and psychoactive substances, while women consumed more medications. As for coping strategies, people from the island territory sought for family and professional support and relied on spiritual and leisure activities. Women engaged in spiritual activities as a coping strategy more than men. During the COVID-19 lockdown, people experienced circumstances they had never experienced. For this reason, they had to resort to coping strategies focused on finding support in people and executing activities that helped them feel relieved mentally and emotionally.

Currently, teacher training programs are called to reflect on the relevance of their curriculum and the pedagogical practices deployed by teacher-trainers around the development of digital skills, according to the challenges posed by the knowledge society. In this context, this research article aims to determine the dimensions that promote the development of digital skills among teachers in initial training phases. This is a quantitative field study conducted through the descriptive analysis method, which applies a questionnaire and factorial analysis as instruments to determine the variables of interest. The results are described based on four dimensions that explain digital skills: ICT appropriation (D1), educational methodology through ICT (D2), teacher training in ICT (D3), and attitudes towards ICT (D4). Our findings relate the dimensions that frame the knowledge society and the level of digital competence of trainee teachers. The factors that evaluate the favorable attitude towards ICT and the commitment to the development of good practices with the integration of technology are significantly appreciated. However, participating teachers expressed their difficulties for addressing the factors related to the planning and methodological implementation of evaluation processes mediated by ICT, since these factors require the articulation of the knowledge they teach with the application of ICT resources, which transforms content-focused practice towards practices that promote innovation and skills training.

This theoretical reflection article seeks to highlight the way in which the problem of water and sanitation can be represented from the theoretical perspective of Regime Complexes. Specifically, through a qualitative research methodology, it will be indicated if the case study addressed operates as an elementary regime within a broader regime complex or whether, in turn, it represents a regime complex itself that involves an overlap of partial and non-hierarchical institutions. The relevance of this case study is manifested in the coupling of theoretical and pragmatic implications, since it is expected that deepening in the conceptual scaffolding of the theory of the Complexes of Regimes contributes to systematize the operation of multilateral institutions dedicated to water and sanitation in practice. As the main conclusion, it is noted that the water and sanitation issue is located in a blurry and overlapping border of institutional arrangements at the multilateral level, as it plays a transversal and important role within multiple dimensions of development and positions itself as a basic precondition for the fulfillment of a broad set of human rights. In this sense, water and sanitation oscillate, on the one hand, between being considered as a subject closely linked to various areas of issues on the global agenda —which therefore cannot be separated from their scope— and, on the other, representing a matter that deserves a specific treatment according to its own particularities. It is argued that these considerations can only be explained from the application of the conceptual apparatus of the Regime Complex theory.