/ Alessandri hosted an INTA International Roundtable

An INTA International Roundtable was hosted in May, 28 by Alessandri Attorneys at Law in Santiago. It was a complete success, with 25 participants from different law firms, representatives of food industries, IP attorneys and authorities from the Chilean PTO (INAPI) and the Ministry of Health.

Andrés Grunewaldt from Silva y Cía., Rodrigo Velasco A., partner at Alessandri; Loreto Navarrete, John Jaederlund and Constanza Barrena, from TMLUC.

The topic was “The new Chilean Health Regulations Restricting the Advertising of Foods and its Impact in Trademark Rights”. The new provisions on Nutritional Composition of Foods and their Advertising, which modify the Food Sanitary Code, include new advertising restrictions which refer to foods showing high levels of calories, fats, sugars, salt and other components. In the future the advertising and packaging of these kinds of foods will have to include mandatory messages, warning the consumers, such as “Excess of…” or “High in…”

Dra. Roxana Buscaglione from Ministry of Health, Loreto Bresky and Rodrigo Velasco S., partners at Alessandri, and Dra. Lorena Rodríguez, from Ministry of Health.

Further, any advertising of these foods to consumers below 14 years of age shall not use marketing promotions such as toys, stickers, incentives, or the like. Furthermore, these foods shall not be sold, marketed, promoted or advertised within kindergartens, primary schools and high schools. As it is obvious, the new regulations are quite controversial and are being subject of a national debate among food industries, importers, trademark owners and consumers. The discussion was so interesting that the roundtable started at 9.15 a.m. and lasted until 11.45 a.m. The Health Authorities (speakers) announced that the new regulations restricting the advertisement of foods are still being reviewed and that the Government has finally decided to postpone for twelve months the date in which they will come into force.

Mariana Viera and Felipe Schuster from Alessandri; Ignacio Villalabeitía, Carmen Paz Alvarez and Sergio Escudero, from INAPI.

The guest speakers were Dra. Lorena Rodriguez (Head of the Nutrition and Food Department of the Ministry of Health), and Dra. Roxana Buscaglione (Counselor of the same Department of the Ministry of Health). The moderator was Alessandri’s partner Loreto Bresky, recently elected member of the Board of the Chilean Association of Intellectual Property (ACHIPI). The Heads of three divisions of the Chilean PTO -Trademarks, International and Legislative- also actively participated in the discussion, namely Carolina Belmar, Sergio Escudero and Carmen Paz Alvarez, respectively. The chairperson of the event was Rodrigo Velasco S., IP Managing Partner of Alessandri.