From Santiago R Bustamante (Tobar & Bustamante Abogados) comes the depressing news for IP owners that Ecuador's Intellectual Property Institute has, from 1 June, hugely increased the official fees which it charges for its services. Details can be found in this article on International Law Office. The biggest jump is for fees for patents for inventions, where the application fee has increased from $108 to $404 – an increase of 374%, with the certificate issuance fee rising from $54 to $204 – an increase of 378%.
These fee increases, together with special fees for a 'well-known trade mark declaration' and for three-dimensional marks, rather suggest that Ecuador sees IP as a tax on foreign IP owners rather than as a means of stimulating and encouraging the use of IP registration by local applicants.
