In a six-page decision dated 27 February 2014, the Lisbon Court of Appeal analysed the procedural or substantive nature of the time limit established by article 42 of the Portuguese Industrial Property Code, under which “appeals must be filed within two months of publication of the decisions in the Industrial Property Bulletin (…)”.

The Court ruled that the deadline starts counting on the day in which the INPI's decision is published in the Industrial Property Bulletin and runs without interruptions (article 279 of the Portuguese Civil Code). Hence, legal holidays should be disregarded. Considering the above, the CoA confirmed the Intellectual Property Court's decision, which had found the appeal of an INPI's decision inadmissible, as a result of a failure to comply with the time-limit prescribed for lodging appeals

This decision was published in the Industrial Property Bulletin no. 113/2014 (16 June 2014). For a similar decision (this author is somehow stunned for seeing this situation repeated), see our previous post on this topic here.