The Spanish Trade Mark Act has been recently amended as to allow the Spanish Patents and Trade Marks Office to use the email to notify its resolutions to non-Spanish domiciled parties. The Spanish Patents and Trade Marks Office has been using the email to notify its resolutions to Spanish residents since 2,001.


Prior to this amendment (effective 29 January 2008), the Spanish Trade Mark Act required the designation of a postal domicile in Spain to those (i) acting directly on their own behalf and (ii) not having a seat in Spain. This was so because all resolutions to non-represented parties without a domicile in Spain were served by means of the Spanish Post Service. This has been in practice a recurrent source of trouble.


The historical provision according to which non-EC residents shall be represented in all cases by chartered Intellectual Property Agents (in Spanish "Agentes de la Propiedad Industrial") has been maintained.


The reported amendment will ease the communication between the Spanish Patents and Trade Marks Office and those parties not having a domicile in in Spain.