Traditional Specialties Guaranteed

Gastronomy not only generates business but also attracts tourisms and encourages the export of traditional products.  Given the magnitude of our gastronomy, it is of vital importance to have the adequate mechanisms to provide it with the necessary legal protection.

The traditional legal categories of industrial property recognized by our regulations, such as trademarks and service marks, collective marks, certification marks and denominations of origin, are not sufficient to provide Peruvian gastronomy or foodstuffs with an adequate and complete protection.

For this reason, by means of Legislative Decree No. 1397, which modifies Legislative Decree No. 1075 (approving the complementary provisions to Decision 486 of the Andean Community Commission), the Traditional Specialty Guaranteed has been included as a new categroy of industrial property in our legislative system.

According to the modifications introduced by Legislative Decree No. 1397, Article 3 of Legislative Decree 1075 establishes the following:

“Article 3 – Constituent elements of industrial property

For purposes of this Legislative Decree, constituent elements of industrial property are the following:  (…)

n) Traditional specialties guaranteed.    (…)”

Morevoer, it is established that the Office of Distinctive Signs of INDECOPI is the competent entity to know and decide, in first instance,  everything relating to this new industrial property element recognized by our legislation.

Nevertheless, the modifications introduced by Legislative Decree No. 1397 do not define the concept of Traditional Specialty Guaranteed, even though they establish the purpose of said figure, that is, “protecting traditional recipies, production or transformation methods corresponding to the traditional practice applicable to a product or foodstuff (…).”

We understand that the legal definition of Traditional Specialty Guaranteed as well as the conditions that the products must meet to be classified in this category, have to be detailed in the respective Regulations, which have not been approved or published yet.

Although Legislative Decree No. 1397 states that the modifications referred to the Traditional Specialty Guaranteed will come into force with the publication of the Regulations, the rule does not establish a maximum term in which said Regulations must be published.

Marcela Escobar