IP & PATENTS IN SURINAME

FIXATION PATENTS IN SURINAME

Companies have the intellectual property over their logo, product, brand name, trade name and thus protect their rights. This right allows them to prohibit third parties from using another’s creation without permission.

Intellectual property refers to the set of exclusive rights granted to intellectual creations. Two categories can be distinguished:

Industrial property: including inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications,
Copyright which includes works of literature and art. In addition, there are neighboring rights: a set of rights that are coextensive with copyright, which give a performer or producer the right to decide on recording, reproduction, and broadcast of a performance and receive fair compensation for it.

If you have created something yourself, you have a right to it, it is yours. That applies to individuals and to corporations. That is, someone else may not or cannot use it without your explicit permission. To record that, you will record your creation, a song, an invention a trademark, a logo, with the Intellectual Property Office.

Examples of things on which you can register intellectual property are: trademarks, patent, drawings and models, plant breeders’ rights, traditional knowledge, geographical indication, topography, copyright, neighboring rights.

Schurman Advocaten is one of the major IP firms, specialized in registering and guarding trademarks in Suriname.

Although Suriname does not yet have legislation to protect patent rights, Schurman Advocaten offers patent holders the opportunity to publish a description of their patent in the Government Gazette, local newspapers and Schurman Advocaten’s website.

This offer by Schurman Advocaten is valid until the relevant legislation is in place in Suriname. This is expected to take effect before the end of 2023.