ECUADOR Law and Practice Contributed by: Santiago José Zambrano Solano, Conlegal Sports
If this is not the case and the mark can be registered, the required form needs to be filled in, selecting the specific product or service to be protected by the mark (name and logo). It takes approximately six to eight months for a final decision either conceding or rejecting the mark to be filed. If the mark is conceded, the title will be given within the next six months. In Ecuador, it is forbidden to register any mark that is similar or identical to a mark that is already registered, or any mark that is considered immoral. The advantage of the registration of a mark is the income that can be derived through commercial nego - tiations between sports clubs and companies interest - ed in exploiting economic agreements. For example, Barcelona Sporting Club has its own ice cream with a leading ice cream company in Ecuador, thanks to a commercial agreement between the two institutions. 5.2 Copyright/Database Rights In the same way as trade marks, copyright and data - base rights are protected by the Ecuadorian Law of Social Economy of Knowledge, Creativity and Innova - tion through SENADI. The protection is conceded once filing and registration at SENADI have been completed. The most common way to demand and protect a copyright is to send cease and desist letters to the offenders. To date, there are no significant cases in Ecuador relating to copyright and database rights linked to football. 5.3 Recognising Personality/Image Rights In Ecuador, the legal recognition of image rights is entrusted to the Ecuadorian Law of Social Economy of Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation. It is quite com - mon to see Ecuadorian clubs including image rights clauses for national or international athletes, mainly in professional football. Besides including image rights clauses, however, clubs do not usually register or protect the image right of each athlete at SENADI,
meaning that unprotected image rights could be com - mercially exploited by a third party. It is therefore important for every professional club to protect the image right of each player by having this registered with SENADI, giving the club the necessary competence to use it. 5.4 Protecting Personality/Image Rights The most common cases involving personality protec - tion have to do with criminal offences where the image rights of an athlete or professional football player have been used to blackmail football fans by requesting money transfers, or fake news made by using AI. 5.5 Licensing Sports bodies and athletes need to draft IP licensing contracts between clubs or athletes, with any poten - tial trade mark that may be of interest included in such an agreement. In order to exploit any intellectual prop - erty, application has to be made at the Ecuadorian Law of Social Economy of Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation and the IP needs to be protected through registration at SENADI, as mentioned in 5.3 Recognis- IP rights have to be registered at SENADI. In order to assign IP rights to third parties, a contract including specific clauses for the use of the IP rights needs to be registered at SENADI and a licensing agreement from SENADI authorising the use of the IP rights needs to be obtained. 5.7 Data in Sport Sports data in Ecuador is still not completely devel - oped for the use of sports bodies or stakeholders and it appears that, so far, sports data has only been used by certain companies that use email or financial infor - mation to promote their products or services. ing Personality/Image Rights . 5.6 Assignment of IP Rights The sports data of each athlete is basically only used in professional football to evaluate the athlete’s per - formance. In 2026, spectator data will be used by the Ecuadorian Professional Football League when it introduces the “FAN ID”, which can potentially be used for commer -
121 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook