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Intellectual Property · EN

Folkloric Dress and Collective Rights: What You Cannot Register as a Trademark in Panama.

The mola, the pollera and other folkloric expressions are protected in Panama by Law 20 of 2000 as collective rights of indigenous peoples. What it protects, how it is registered, and why a company cannot appropriate that heritage as a private trademark.

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Before designing a brand that uses the mola, the pollera, the nagua or another element of Panamanian folklore, you should know that this heritage is protected by a special regime. It is not a "free design": it is a collective right, and appropriating it can cost you the refusal of your trademark and legal liability.

What Law 20 of 2000 protects

Law 20 of June 26, 2000 established a "special regime of intellectual property over the collective rights of indigenous peoples." It protects, as part of indigenous cultural heritage (articles 1 and 3): traditional dress (the Guna mola, the Ngäbe-Buglé nagua, among others), handicrafts, music, dances and other folkloric expressions and traditional knowledge. The mola is the emblematic case.

How these rights are registered (and who may do it)

  • Registration is requested only by the general congresses or traditional indigenous authorities (article 5), not by a company or an individual.
  • It is filed with DIGERPI or with the National Copyright Directorate of the Ministry of Education, as applicable.
  • DIGERPI has a Department of Collective Rights and Folkloric Expressions (article 7). These registrations do not expire, are free of charge and require no lawyer.

Why a company cannot register it as its own trademark

Reading the two laws together yields the practical rule:

  1. Law 20 reserves the registration of these rights to indigenous peoples and prohibits the industrial reproduction, in whole or in part, of traditional dress (article 20). A non-indigenous artisan may make replicas but cannot claim the collective rights or monopolize them (article 23).
  2. Law 35 of 1996 (article 91, paragraph 5) prohibits registering as a trademark any sign contrary to morality, public order or good customs — the basis for refusing private appropriation of cultural heritage.

Consequently, trying to register a protected folkloric expression as your own trademark is, besides ethically questionable, legally unviable: the application is refusable and exposed to nullity. (Specific rules have also prohibited importing imitations of molas and naguas.)

What you CAN do

You can build a brand inspired by Panamanian aesthetics without appropriating a protected element: an original, distinctive sign of your own that does not reproduce, or falsely suggest the protection of, indigenous heritage. The line between legitimate inspiration and improper appropriation is thin and worth drawing with legal judgment before investing in registration.

Related: types of trademarks you can register in Panama · the 45 Nice classes.

Legal basis: Law 20 of June 26, 2000 and Law 35 of 1996 (amended by Law 61 of 2012). Informational content, not legal advice.