BAHAMAS Law and Practice Contributed by: Judith Whitehead KC, Michaela Sumner-Budhi, Sean McWeeney Jr., Charisma Romer-Cartwright and Hubert Edwards, GrahamThompson
To register a trade mark, the process is as follows: • complete the relevant forms with the necessary supporting documents; • file the completed forms at the Intellectual Property Office; and • pay the applicable fees. The entire application process – inclusive of the pub - lishing of the mark in the official gazette, and the final approval and registration of the mark – can take up to 18 months. A person who has filed an application for protection of a trade mark in a Convention country (any coun - try that is a member of the World Trade Organization; the Convention of the Union of Paris; or any other treaty the Minister responsible for trade marks may by Order designate) has a right to priority, for the pur - poses of registering the same trade mark under the Trade Marks Act, for a period of six months from the date of filing of the first such application. The registration of a trade mark is for ten years but may be renewed from time to time in accordance with the provisions of the Trade Marks Act. Under the Trade Marks Act, persons shall only be entitled to institute proceedings to prevent or recover damages for the infringement of a registered trade mark. In any legal proceeding in which the validity of the reg - istration of a registered trade mark comes into ques - tion and is decided in favour of the proprietor of such trade mark, the Supreme Court may certify the same, and if it so certifies, then in any subsequent legal pro - ceeding in which such validity comes into question, the proprietor of the said trade mark, on obtaining a final order or judgment in their favour, shall have their full costs, charges, and expenses as between attorney and client, unless in such subsequent proceedings the court certifies that they ought not to have the same. Similarly, in addition to the statutory penalties of a monetary fine or the forfeiture of all goods in respect of which an offence was committed, the Supreme
Court can make such order as it sees fit with respect to suitable remedies. 7.3 Industrial Designs The definition of “design” for the purposes of the Industrial Property Act means features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament of an article, or features of a pattern or ornament applicable to arti - cles insofar as such features appeal to and are judged solely by the eye. Generally, design copyright in a design exists for five years from the date of deposit. However, applications for extensions can be made under the Industrial Prop - erty Act. Every claim for design copyright in a design must be accompanied by a representation or, at the Regis - trar General’s option, a specimen of the design, and must include certain information as specified by the Industrial Property Act. It is anticipated the Industrial Property Act will be amended to reflect applications the new regime and for applications to be made to the Industrial Property Office Similarly, there are various remedies available through the Supreme Court and applicable to patents under A copyright is a property right that, unless specifically excluded by the Copyright Act, may subsist in the fol - lowing categories of work of authorship: • literary works; • musical works inclusive of any accompanying words; • dramatic works inclusive of any accompanying music; • artistic works; • motion pictures and other audio-visual works; • choreographic works; and • sound recordings. Generally, copyright in any work expires after 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies, save for those limited exceptions outlined in the Copyright Act when the period varies. the legislation. 7.4 Copyright
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