AUGE LEGAL & FISCAL has a strong and consolidated position of leader in trademark prosecution within the Principality of Andorra.
The firm has filed, and currently manages, more than 50% of all registered Andorran trademarks and we are proud of the professional relationship developed with other top notch international firms over the past decades.
The attractiveness of the Principality of Andorra has allowed to generate a certain awareness on the necessity to file and protect trademarks in the Principality. And many prestigious clients and small businesses have trusted AUGE LEGAL & FISCAL to file and manage their IP (international property) portfolio.
Moreover, several US multinational companies (such as INSTAGRAM, the streetwear brands OBEY and SUPREME for instance) have chosen the firm to defend their trademark rights, which gave rise to satisfactory judicial decisions handed down by the Andorran courts.
The international nature of IP rights allows for the creation of strategic partnerships and continued workflow with our trusted “best friends” firms throughout the world.
These collaborations are of paramount importance for AUGE LEGAL & FISCAL because they allow the firm to provide a genuine international reach and internation perspective thanks to the intervention of our correspondents of trust.
As an illustration of these synergies regarding IP matters, AUGE LEGAL & FISCAL can (indirectly) provide services of European trademark filings, filing of US trademarks at the USPTO with our trusted allies, or obtaining an industrial design for our client at the Benelux IP office for example.
Aside from this internation prosecution strategy, the firm also coordinates foreign IP litigation. This is the case for instance of a lawsuit won for our client SHANGTI STUDIO, SLU at the Court of Malaga (Spain) with the excellent cooperation of a renowned Spanish firm specialized in IP litigation.
The facts of the case at hand are very straightforward: a restaurant in Marbella intentionally to copy several works of Art of internation contemporary artist PHILIPPE SHANGTI, causing a real harm to the artist due to this unauthorized “blatant copy” of the artist’s works of Art.
A writ of Summons was therefore served against the owner of the restaurant that gave rise to a decision of first instance handed down by the Court of Malaga on 24 January 2023 that sentenced the infringer to cease the infringing acts, pay a substantive amount of damages to the artist PHILIPPE SHANGTI and destroy the unauthorized copies.
This decision took stock of the international reputation of artist PHILIPPE SHANGTI and in particular considered in a very clear manner that:
The Tags apposed on the plates, the neon lights and the waiters jackets “are not commonly used but rather at the contrary as they are provocative expressions in consonance with the rest of the artist’s Works of art (…), and in addition they must be considered literary Works of art as they are original creations that reflect the personality of the author and the creative effort and must therefore be considered as subject-matter protected by intellectual property and able to generate the corresponding rights in favor of the author”.
The decision was appealed by the defendant and the Court of appeal of Malaga confirmed the first instance decision in its entirety. The opposite party intended to bring the case before the Spanish Supreme Court but the Court of appeal dismissed the case stating that there was no constitutional motive whatsoever to be admitted before the Supreme Court. The decision handed down by the Court of appeal of Malaga is therefore final.
This is a good illustration of the technical and specific knowledge of the IP team of AUGE LEGAL & FISCAL to find effective and practical solutions regarding prosecution and contentious matters in the field of Intellectual property.