María-Belén Rivadeneira

María-Belén is admitted to practice in Ecuador and is an expert on Andean IP Law (Andean Community of Nations –CAN-). She is a lawyer from SEK International University (Quito – Ecuador) with a specialization degree in Intellectual Property Law. She also has a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in Law & Economics with emphasis on Competition and Intellectual Property Law from Universiteit Utrecht (Utrecht – The Netherlands). She is currently the DIRECTOR of the IP UNIT at VIVANCO & VIVANCO. She handles and supervises (in a domestic and in an international basis, through all the V&V offices-chapters in the region) the three main branches of this Unit are: 1)IP; 2) Competition and; 3) Regulatory (Sanitary) matters for a wide range of national and international Clients from diverse sectors such as the textile, clothing, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, food & beverages, automobile & parts, education and construction industries, among others. She has performed (as plaintiff or defendant) several high-level actions, in front of the national Authorities of IP, Competition and Sanitary/Health affairs, such as Nullity Actions on the Grounds of Bad Faith, Cancellation Actions on the grounds of Lack of Use, Administrative Tutelages on the grounds of Unauthorized Use of Trademarks and also has successfully acted as defendant of a great number of Administrative Tutelages illegitimately initiated by several Collective Management, Contentious Administrative Lawsuits against the Intellectual Property Office Resolutions, Complaints on the Grounds of Unfair Practices. Besides the day-to-day IP matters successfully managed by her Unit: Applications, Prosecution, Oppositions, Reversal Actions, Appeals, etc., she also takes care personally of the annual in-situ coaching of teams and coordination of cases managed by the International Chapters of the IP UNIT in the US, UK, Costa Rica, Colombia and Argentina.