Netherlands Trademark Information

The Netherlands Antilles, previously known as the Netherlands West Indies or Dutch Antilles/West Indies, is located in the Caribbean Sea and consists of two groups of islands – the Lesser Antilles and the Leeward Antilles. The population is estimated at 197,000 with a GDP of $2.45 billion.

Once the center of the Caribbean slave trade, the island of Curacao was hard hit by the abolition of slavery in 1863. Its prosperity (and that of neighboring Aruba) was restored in the early 20th century with the construction of oil refineries to service newly discovered Venezuelan oil fields. The island of Saint Martin is shared with France; its southern portion is named Sint Maarten and is part of the Netherlands Antilles; its northern portion, called Saint Martin, is an overseas collectivity of France.

Trademarks are assigned through the Bureau of Intellectual Property under the supervision of the Minister of Justice. Netherlands Antilles is not a member of the Madrid Protocol. A trademark is valid for 10 years and may be renewed for further periods of 10 years each.

No right to a mark shall be aquired by:

• the filing for registration of a mark that, regardless of the use that is made thereof , is in contravention of good morals or public order, or in respect whereof article 6ter of the Paris Convention provides for refusal or nullification;
• the filing effected for goods or services for which the use of the mark might result in the public being misled;
• the filing of a mark that corresponds to a collective mark filed for similar goods or services, to which was attached a right that lapsed in the course of the three years preceding the filing;
• the filing of a mark that corresponds to an individual mark filed by a third party for similar goods or services, to which a right was attached that lapsed in the course of the two years preceding the filing by the expiration of the validity of the registry, unless such third party has given his consent, or no use was made of this mark in accordance with article 9, second paragraph section a.;
• the filing of a mark that can lead to confusion with a generally known mark in terms of article 6bis of the Paris Convention, and that belongs to a third party who has not given his consent;
• filing made in bad faith