1 December 2011Patents

Focussed on the future

What are the major challenges facing the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI)?

INPI faces many challenges. I would highlight three of them. Dealing with the demand for IP rights in Brazil, which grows continuously, is the first and most obvious one. Another has to do with contributing actively to Brazilian innovation and competitiveness policies, by means of spreading throughout industry and government regulatory boards a better understanding of the role IP rights play in innovation.

The third important challenge I highlight is to build a more integrated regional IP environment, which might make it easier for Brazilian and Latin American companies and research institutions to develop IP portfolios and to share them within regional and global innovation networks.

In short, INPI has to keep improving its operational capabilities, to promote the understanding and use of the IP system by local and regional players, and to help build an integrated environment for regional and global business collaboration.

How important is international cooperation to the INPI?

I find it fundamental, in light of the three main challenges I referred to before. International collaboration may help address the backlog, and we have been working hard for that, especially with the other IP authorities in South American Region.

The PRO-SUR Initiative is a very serious and promising project, which may be necessary to guarantee quality and timeliness in granting IP rights in the region. International cooperation has also proved to be helpful in promoting the understanding of the role of IP in innovation.

Promoting international protection of Brazilian IP, revealing best practices of partners and competitors and creating networking opportunities have been playing a significant role in this area. It is not necessary to explain that international cooperation also contributes to better integrating the Brazilian IP environment into broader contexts.

“WE BELIEVE IN SHARING BEST PRACTICES AND BUILDING COLLABORATIVE SCHEMES, TOGETHER WITH THE MANY COUNTRIES ACTUALLY AND POTENTIALLY INTERESTED IN COLLABORATING WITH US.”

It is important to say, though, that we have an understanding of international cooperation, which positions it as technically oriented, internationally diversified, and essentially both-handed: we do not seek financial support for developing our IP system, and we also do not believe that such kind of support would be the main need for developing countries in general. We believe in sharing best practices and building collaborative schemes, together with the many countries actually and potentially interested in collaborating with us.

How useful is Brazil finding the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)? Is there a need for more comprehensive, plurilateral agreements of this sort?

In our view, PPH-like agreements are provisional solutions, which, nonetheless, may be extremely important. It has to be seen as provisional as it relies on bilateral arrangements, which may only make sense while no multilateral arrangement is built.

Its importance is due to the apparent lack of appetite to build quickly stronger multilateral collaborative schemes within the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which might be the natural and best answer to the dilemma arising from the need to provide solutions to growing demand and backlogs, avoiding unnecessary replication of work and guaranteeing sovereignty in the concession of economic rights. Brazil has historically favored multilateral solutions, and here is no exception.

But we are engaged in regional sharing of search and examination reports, and we are studying the possibility of participating in PPH-like agreements with several countries, as we have seen no significant progress in PCT amendments towards the necessary deepening of collaboration mechanisms and enlargement of its scope and inclusiveness.

Already registered?

Login to your account

To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.

Two Weeks Free Trial

For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk