Practice Areas: Copyright
Bourgoing & Lozano, has expertise and extensive experience in copyright law and author's rights. We are equally comfortable with traditional subjects such as art, literary and musical works, technology such as computer software and new media or specialty properties such as titles, names of fictional characters or groups.
We are knowledgeable about the procedures of the National Copyright Institute (INDA) and our attorneys are experienced in INDA hearings. Manuel Lozano have all been called as expert witnesses in copyright cases in both civil and criminal proceedings.
We also handle negotiations, agreements and contracts related to copyrighted works as well as licenses and assignments.
Our investigators constantly verify the market, detecting irregularities, copies, unfair competition, including falsifications of the products and marks which we represent. With this we seek to have an up to date knowledge of the market in order to be able to maintain our clients informed of the situation of their marks and products.
As a result of the legislative reforms in industrial property law, piracy is considered a serious offense, for which anyone who produces, commercializes, introduces into the country, distributes, transports and/or stores pirated products, shall be penalized with three to ten years of prison and a fine of two thousand to twenty thousand days of the general minimum wage in effect in the Federal District.
Objects of copyright are literary and artistic works. Software is also considered works of authorship for regulation and protection effects. Copyright includes the execution, edition and production of works of authorship and Reserva of Exclusive Rights.
Copyright protection is granted from the moment a work is created and fixed on a material support. The recognition of the rights of authorship need no registration or document of any kind and is not subordinated to any formality. Foreign authors are protected in Mexico in respect of their works, even if not registered in this country.
Ideas per se, industrial or commercial advantages on ideas contained in works and the plans or rules to do businesses are not object of protection with copyright. Neither the informative contents of news except its form of expression.
Published works of authorship must show the expression “Derechos Reservados” (Copyright) followed by the © symbol, the complete name and address of the titleholder of the rights and the year of the first publication.
The creation of a work confers to its author two kinds of rights; moral and patrimonial. Moral rights are represented by the faculty of creating the work, to disclose it or maintain the same unknown, to demand the recognition of the author in respect of its work, to demand respect to the work, to modify the same and oppose to its modification, to remove the work from commerce and to oppose to the attribution of the authorship of a work. Moral rights are considered united to the author and are inalienable, unpronounceable and unprescriptible.
Patrimonial rights imply the faculty of obtaining a retribution for the lucrative exploitation of the work. It confers to the owner of a work the faculty to authorize or prohibit its transmission, reproduction, publication, edition, representation, exhibition, distribution and any public use.
Patrimonial rights last the life of the author plus 100 years after his/her death.
To register a work of authorship at the Mexican Copyright Office the following information and documents are necessary: