The amendments will affect companies that use intangible assets, involving significant penalties.
The Economic Crimes Law, through its own regulation, has meant a great revolution for the corporate world in general.
Given this scenario, from an Intellectual Property (IP) perspective, it presents a challenge for companies that use intangible assets such as trademarks, patents or copyrights for their operations.
Thus, in the event that a company has many IP assets as a result of legal changes, it must be careful with three bodies of law that can trigger considerable penalties in case of infringement:
- IP parent laws that include: Industrial Property, Copyright and Plant Varieties.
- Law on Economic Crimes.
- Law on Criminal Liability of Legal Entities.
Thus, the aforementioned Intellectual Property parent laws typify crimes against IP (e.g., trademark counterfeiting or unauthorized use of a copyrighted work, among many others).
While the Economic Crimes Law imposes more severe sanctions and regulations to those who commit such crimes against IP in the exercise of a managerial position within a company or for the benefit of a company.
For its part, the Law on Criminal Liability of Legal Entities, after the amendments incorporated by the aforementioned law, will sanction the company in which an IP offense has been committed if the commission of the offense can be attributed to the lack of implementation of an adequate Crime Prevention Model (MPD).
Consequently, all companies, and especially those handling IP assets, should strengthen their CDMs. This implies establishing specific measures for the use of these assets and preventing associated crimes, through rigorous policies and controls.
For example, it is essential to train marketing personnel to obtain the necessary authorizations when using third-party images, and to ensure that engineers do not use patented inventions without a license.
Otherwise, both the individual and the company could face criminal liability.
Consequently, the proposed changes raise the standard of compliance for institutions of all sizes, although it should be noted that SMEs are not subject to certain rules.
There is no doubt that this new regulatory scenario will increase transaction and training costs, but it will be a significant contribution to the protection of intangible assets in our country.
For more information on these issues, please contact our IP, Tech and Data team:
Eugenio Gormáz | Partner | egormaz@az.cl
Antonia Nudman | Senior Associate | anudman@az.cl
Carlos Lazcano | Senior Associate | clazcano@az.cl
Fernanda Rodríguez | Associate | frodriguez@az.cl
Esteban Orhanovic | Associate | eorhanovic@az.cl
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