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Spotify may change the way royalties are paid in 2024

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Spotify may change the way it pays artists from 2024 onwards. It appears that the company plans to change its royalty model for next year, disqualifying certain audio tracks — such as low-range streaming and non-musical noise — and increasing penalties against studios that commit fraud.

The platform did not confirm these possible changes, but sources consulted by Billboard point to imminent changes in the remuneration of singers and other accounts. Spotify may discuss this idea with major US record labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group.

For 2024, three significant changes are expected in the way creators are paid:

  • Limit of minimum annual flows that a track must meet before starting to generate royalties.
  • Fines for distributors and record labels when fraudulent activities are identified.
  • Minimum playback time for white noise tracks, sounds of rain, birds, and other similar audio to start earning royalties.

To achieve these objectives, Spotify must sign new agreements with record labels and distributors so that the change in the way music royalties are paid is approved by everyone. In response to Billboard, a company spokesperson commented on these speculations, noting that:

“We are always evaluating how we can better serve artists and regularly discuss ways to promote the integrity of the platform with partners. We have no news to share at this time.” The statement does not provide details about the company’s plans but points to an open discussion with affiliates.

Source: Tudocelular

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Nokia seeks compensation for Amazon’s use of their patented multimedia inventions

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The Finnish Nokia is suing Amazon and HP over the unauthorized use of a mix of video streaming-related essential patents. Nokia filed a lawsuit in a Delaware federal court and similar lawsuits across Germany, India, the UK, and the European Unified Patent Court.

The lawsuits, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, allege that Amazon’s Prime Video and Twitch streaming services, as well as its Fire TV devices, infringe Nokia’s patents related to video streaming technology. Nokia is seeking injunctions to stop the alleged infringement, as well as damages.

Nokia claims that Amazon has refused to license its patents despite being offered fair terms. The company says that it has invested heavily in video streaming technology and that the alleged infringement is harming its business.

In a statement, Nokia said: “We are taking this action to protect our intellectual property and to ensure that our investments in research and development are rewarded. We believe that Amazon’s use of our patented inventions is unlawful, and we are committed to defending our rights.”

Amazon has not yet commented on the lawsuits.

Source: Nokia

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The new Brazilian action plan is launched and sets a 3-year target for granting patents until 2025

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The 2023-2025 Action Plan of the National Intellectual Property Strategy (ENPI) was launched on Tuesday (10/24), with publication in the Official Gazette of the Union (DOU), which aims to ensure progress towards an effective and balanced intellectual property system, which leverages Brazil’s competitiveness and economic and social development.

The plan, prepared by the Interministerial Intellectual Property Group (GIPI), brings together 63 actions and 161 deliveries across seven areas of activity. Among them, measures to promote administrative efficiency allowed the establishment of a new target for decision time on patent applications, which will increase from 6.9 years (reference of December 2022) to 3 years by July 2025. The target is intermediate since the INPI has planned complementary actions that will allow the target to be reduced to 2 years in 2026, as already announced by the vice-president and minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services (MDIC), Geraldo Alckmin.

Furthermore, the plan is designed to increase Brazil’s position from 6th to 3rd in the ranking of countries in terms of several trademark registrations and from 12th to 11th position among countries in several industrial design filings. Finally, there is also a target to increase the number of innovation projects benefiting from mentoring and training in intellectual property from 227 to 450.

“The main challenge for the Plan is to maintain a concerted and strategic action between the different actors operating in the IP system, aiming to achieve more effective results with greater impact on society,” says the Secretary of Competitiveness and Regulatory Policy at MDIC, Andrea Macera. “161 deliveries were planned, involving 18 government bodies and 11 civil society institutions. Now our challenge is to coordinate GIPI participants for the implementation and deliveries of all ecosystem actors within ENPI”, adds the Secretary coordinator of the group.

She highlights that one of the plan’s objectives is to bridge the gap between development and intellectual property, aiming for the practical application of patents by the industrial sector, for example, with technology transfer. “More than half of national patent filings come from universities and do not necessarily translate into technology transfer to industry,” explained Macera.

Actions: The actions foreseen in the Action Plan are aligned with the priorities of the government’s agenda, especially the missions defined by the National Council for Industrial Development (CNDI).

There are governance, educational, mentoring, training initiatives, regulatory updates, structure qualification, and process simplification, among others.

For using IP as a sustainable development tool, for example, deliveries such as matchmaking in green technologies and training in the Amazon region are planned to generate income from IP assets, such as geographical indications and collective brands. Actions will also be carried out to promote the diversity of users of the national IP system with mentoring on the topic in training programs for women entrepreneurs, such as Elas Exportam (They Export) and Empreendedoras Tech (Tech Entrepreneurs).

Some educational initiatives will aim to disseminate the culture of Brazilian intellectual property to audiences of different levels of education. This is the case of the PI nas Escolas (IP in school) program, which rewards public school teachers who bring IP knowledge to students. Higher and technical education proposals will be discussed in a specialized group within the scope of GIPI.

By encouraging teaching about Intellectual Property, Brazil advances towards experiences adopted by other countries. In South Korea, for example, children have been discussing the issue since elementary school. In the United States, this practice takes place in high school. In many cases, the subject is mandatory in undergraduate courses.

The plan creates an IP intelligence nucleus that will produce, every semester, a study that contributes to identifying technological capabilities and trends. The first selected study will focus on biopharmaceutical patents to analyze freedom of operation in the country and support policy decision-making in the Health Economic and Industrial Complex (CEIS).

It is also planned to include IP criteria and content in funding notices supported by bodies such as the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), the Financier of Studies and Projects (Finep), and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes). In this case, the objective is to protect innovations from research and development with public resources.

To build the action plan, GIPI incorporated suggestions from civil society in a public grant-making process finalized in May. Altogether, the measures collected encourage creativity, investments in innovation, and access to knowledge for greater competitiveness and economic and social development in Brazil. The goals set by the plan also support projects developed by Science and Technology Institutions (ICTs) and Technological Innovation Centers (NITs).

Source: MDIC

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A legislative decree promulgated with agreement to protect geographical indications in Mercosur

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The president of Congress, Senator Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), promulgated a Legislative Decree containing an agreement between Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay) to protect original geographical indications. The text was published in the Official Gazette of the Union this Monday (16).

The legislative decree corresponds to the approval of the National Congress to the text signed by the Brazilian government. To enter into force, the agreement, approved by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in May this year (PDL 165/22), still needs presidential ratification, carried out by decree.

According to the agreement, signed in 2019, the countries undertake to mutually respect the geographical indications contained in a resolution approved by the Common Market Group (GMC), the central executive body of Mercosur.

Geographical indication (or GI) is a registration given to traditional products or services characteristic of the place of origin. Examples are Canastra cheese and grapes typical of a region. The GI is a private right for collective use, restricted to producers or service providers who receive the brand.

Source: Agência Câmara de Notícias

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Brazil’s accession to the Budapest treaty

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Brazil is one step away from becoming a signatory to the Budapest Treaty, which could represent a step forward for the country, which seeks to position itself strategically in the socio-bioeconomy segment.

This essay highlights the Treaty approval process, its importance, and the involvement of the Brazilian Network of Biological Resource Centers.

One of the conditions for granting a patent is the complete description of the invention in the application specification to enable a person skilled in the art to reproduce the invention.

In the case of biotechnological inventions, the biological material that is essential for the invention must be deposited in an international depositary authority (IDA); this material is understood as a necessary informational supplement to the descriptive report of the patent application (Art. 24 § 1 of LPI 9,279/96). These institutions must ensure the reception and conservation of microorganisms and the sending of samples.

The Budapest Treaty’s Significance

The Budapest Treaty, created in 1977 within the scope of the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO, establishes the recognition of the deposit of microorganisms for patent purposes in any IDA located only in countries that sign the treaty. It has been in force since 1977 and currently has 89 signatory countries.

Composed of 20 articles, the Budapest Treaty sets out the rules for the deposit of microorganisms to apply for and grant a patent, in which all signatory countries are obliged to recognize the microorganisms deposited as part of the patent-obtaining procedure.

A single deposit in an IDA is valid for all signatory countries to the Treaty, regardless of this IDA being located inside or outside the territory where the patent application is being filed. The Treaty also defines the characteristics of these institutions (IDAs) and the criteria for acquiring this status with WIPO, in addition to guaranteeing access to biological material deposited with IDAs by any interested parties once the confidentiality period of the patent application has ended.

Brazil’s Role in the Treaty

At the same time, this discussion was taken to the scope of the project for the establishment of the Brazilian Network of Biological Resource Centers – Rede CRB-Br, in which BPTO participated together with Fiocruz, Embrapa, Unicamp, Banco de Células do Rio de January -BCRJ, Inmetro, Environmental Information Reference Center (CRIA), Brazilian Society of Microbiology – SBM and TecPar (which was later replaced by Bioqualis), with the support from MCTI. In this context, the construction project of the Brazilian Center for Biological Material (CBMB) emerged, one of whose objectives was to receive biological material for patent purposes, and which construction began through a partnership between BPTO and Inmetro on the Inmetro campus in Xerém.

Policy Developments

In parallel, in 2007, the National Policy for the Development of Biotechnology – PDB, established by decree 6,041, proposed as some of its actions the structuring of Biological Resource Centers – CRBs, operating as collections of service-providing cultures, which fully serve national and international safety and traceability requirements and that are accredited as certifying authorities for biological material; the implementation of a Depository Center for natural material for patent purposes; and the creation of an evaluation system and inter-ministerial structure capable of articulating and managing the compliance of biological material with the adoption of international standards, which make it possible to strengthen and improve the training of CRBs to operate in a national integrated network. Therefore, the PDB reinforced the importance of establishing the CBMB and the Brazilian Network of CRBs.

In 2009, the preparation of the project for the construction of the CBMB began, which would be designed to meet all the requirements that would enable it to be accredited as an IDA. However, the project was discontinued at the end of 2014 due to technical and administrative issues.

Despite this, in 2016, ordinance 130 of the MCTI that establishes and regulates the Brazilian Network of Biological Resource Centers – Rede CRB-Br within the scope of the MCTI, defined in Art. 2, item V, as one of the objectives of the Network CRB- Br, provide biological material deposit services for the protection of intellectual property.

Accreditation and the Budapest Treaty

Thus, considering the relevance and urgency for the country of a structure for the deposit of biological material for patent purposes, the need arose to redefine a proposal for compliance with the Biotechnology Development Policy Guidelines established by Decree 6,041 of 2007 and Ordinance 130 of 2016, of MCTI3. This redefinition considered a change of understanding regarding the need for the depository center to be linked to the INPI, given the observation that the cultural collections in the United States and Europe that act as IDA are not related to the respective patent offices.

However, it is essential to emphasize that depositing patent material must remain dissociated from other cultural collection activities, guaranteeing the deposit process’s impartiality.

Thus, the scenario was reestablished for national institutions, such as Fiocruz, Embrapa, Unicamp, and BCRJ, among others equally qualified, to request, via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), accreditation with WIPO to act as IDAs. However, this accreditation depends on Brazil’s adherence to the Budapest Treaty.

Currently, BPTO accepts the deposit of biological material for patent purposes only in IDAs, so Brazil’s adherence to the Treaty, in addition to not resulting in any changes to procedures already adopted by INPI, will bring benefits to different groups such as depositors of Brazilian patents, which will be able to deposit biological material in an IDA located in the national territory when this is recognized by WIPO (with reduced costs and bureaucracy); qualified national institutions, which may be identified as IDA and may obtain new sources of revenue from the deposit of biological material, not only deposits of natural material from nationals but also from other countries, mainly Latin American governments, which have only one tiny IDA in Chile; and the scientific community, companies in the biotechnology sector, and Brazilian society in general, a since the material deposited in IDAs becomes public for scientific research, technological development, and innovation, it will be more readily accessible as it is in the national territory.

Towards a Stronger Network

This action is also aligned with efforts to structure the Brazilian Network of Biological Resource Centers, currently called Biobanks (according to the definition in ISO 20.387:18, which brings general requirements for biobank activities), which has as One of its objectives is the establishment of depository institutions for biological material in Brazil to protect intellectual property.

In recent years, it has been demonstrated, therefore, that Brazil’s non-participation in the Budapest Treaty results in increased costs and more incredible difficulty in the process of claiming patent protection for inventors and applicants who wish to file in multiple countries an application for an invention whose existence is a microorganism as an innovative technological element is present.

Thus, once only arguments favorable to Brazil’s accession to the Budapest Treaty were listed, it was considered reasonable to consider the existence of IDAs in Brazilian territory as instruments of legal security and logistical facilitation for inventors and depositors.

Legislative Decree and Pending Consideration

Given this scenario, through a request made by the Executive Branch, it was prepared and submitted for consideration by the members of the National Congress by the provisions of art. 49, item I, combined with art. 84, item VIII of the Federal Constitution, the Legislative Decree Project 466/22, whose proposal analyzes the relevance of the country’s accession to the Budapest Treaty. The PDL 466/22 is currently pending processing in only one permanent committee of the Chamber of Deputies, the Constitution, Justice, and Citizenship Committee – CCJC is still subject to consideration in the house’s plenary.

Conclusion

The imminent signing of the Treaty, therefore, benefits development and innovation in the area of biotechnology by allowing cost reduction and simplification of procedures for users of the patent system in Brazil, as well as the strengthening of microbial Biobanks and cell cultures that may be accredited as IDA and organized in a new Brazilian network, which will be able to provide another essential service, the deposit of biological materials related to patent applications.

Source: Migalhas

News

Brazil is once again part of the ranking of the 50 most innovative economies globally

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After 12 years outside the list of the 50 most innovative economies in the world, Brazil gained five positions in the Global Innovation Index (IGI) compared to the 2022 ranking and now occupies 49th place among 132 countries, becoming first place From Latin America.

The data was released this Wednesday (27) when the 10th International Industry Innovation Congress opens.

Brazilian Climbing

According to the index data, Brazil is the most innovative economy in the region and is the leader in Latin America and the Caribbean, higher than countries such as Chile (52nd) and Mexico (58th).

Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States are on the podium of the most innovative economies.

Among the five oldest members of BRICS, Brazil is in third place, ahead of Russia (51st) and South Africa (59th). China is ranked 12th, while India is ranked 40th.

Indices that highlighted the evolution

The five positions achieved by Brazil in the 2023 ranking place the country among the economies that improved their performance in the IGI over the last four years.

Indicators such as online government services (14th position) and electronic participation (11th) are some of those responsible for raising Brazil’s position.

It is also worth highlighting the value of its 16 unicorns (22nd), representing 1.9% of the national GDP in 2023, and its intangible assets (31st), obtaining good results worldwide for its registered brands (13th) and the global value of its marks (39th).

Potential to be explored

Even with the gains in positions sustained for the third consecutive year, the Brazilian place is still considered below the country’s potential, which today has the 10th largest economy in the world. Brazil’s best position in the IGI was in 2011, reaching 47th.

For the president of the CNI, Robson Braga de Andrade, Brazil can grow each year in the ranking if there are investments and policies aimed at science, technology, and innovation (ST&I).

“Brazil’s position in the Global Innovation Index has improved recently. However, we have very untapped potential to improve our innovation ecosystem, achieve the goal of integrating the scientific and business sectors, and, consequently, promote greater innovation,” he says.

“We need modern and updated public policies, and, for this, the IGI has the fundamental role of helping to understand Brazil’s strengths and weaknesses,” adds Robson Andrade.

“CNI and MEI are aware of the importance of measuring innovation to enable effective policies, achieve solid results in ST&I activities, and promote social and economic development,” he concludes.

Space for eco-innovation

The theme of the International Industry Innovation Congress, which takes place between Wednesday and Thursday (28) in São Paulo, is eco-innovation. Research released this week by CNI reveals that almost half of Brazilian industries have projects or action plans on the topic.

Brazil plays a leading role in Latin America’s green technology race.

Green patent filings in Brazil have accounted for more than half of the total applications from the Latin American offices analyzed.

Brazil faces the historic opportunity to become a global green leader and has a higher share of green patents than the leading economies (16.1% in Brazil versus 14.9% in the USA, 14.3% in the E.U. and 15. 3% in China).

However, this difference has been falling in recent years.

For IGI organizers, Brazil needs to establish a culture of eco-innovation, which involves increasing companies’ propensity to take risks and strengthening government support for green innovation.

Waste management, energy conservation, alternative energy, and transportation offer promising innovative capabilities in the Brazilian industry.

Switzerland leads the IGI ranking

The top ten countries in the index are, in order:

  • Switzerland;
  • Sweden;
  • U.S.;
  • U.K.;
  • Singapore;
  • Finland;
  • Netherlands;
  • Germany;
  • Denmark;
  • South Korea.

The classification has been published annually since 2007 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO or WIPO) in partnership with the Portulans Institute and the support of international partners – in the case of Brazil, the CNI and Mobilização Empresarial for Innovation (MEI), partners in the production and dissemination of IGI since 2017.

Source: CNN

News

UN asks rich countries to release patents on vaccines against COVID-19

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UN says countries that don’t renounce vaccine intellectual property rights violate the convention against racial discrimination.

The United Nations Committee against Racism appealed on Thursday (31) for rich countries, notably the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, to renounce vaccine patents against COVID-19. According to the UN, countries that refuse to relinquish intellectual property rights violate a convention against racial discrimination.

Agreement to lift patents at the WTO

At a meeting held at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in June 2022, member countries had agreed in principle to authorize developing nations to suspend patents on vaccines against COVID-19 for five years.

According to the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a group of 18 experts, more efforts are needed to reduce inequality between nations.

“It is not enough to fight against the high rates of morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19 among the people and groups most exposed to racial discrimination around the world”, they said in a statement published with the support of the Special Rapporteur of the Nations on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Ashwini K.P.

Low vaccination in poorer countries

  • According to the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO), 32% of the world’s population received at least one booster dose or additional dose of vaccine.
  • But in some developing countries, that number is less than one percent.
  • This is the case in Gabon, Papua New Guinea, Burundi, and Madagascar.
  • However, negotiations on the subject were stalled, according to information from Medical Xpress.

UN charges rich countries

Rich countries’ “persistent refusal” to relinquish intellectual property rights “raises concerns” about their obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the UN committee added.

The document also points out that COVID-19 remains a severe public health problem, with “devastating” impacts that disproportionately affect people of African or Asian descent, ethnic minorities, Roma communities, and indigenous peoples.

Inequality could be “significantly mitigated” by sharing access to intellectual property rights for vaccines, treatments, and technologies “currently reserved by some countries in the global North,” concludes the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Source: Olhar Digital

News

BPTO releases technical note on the term “Cachaça” in Geographical Indication

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The BPTO informs that on August 31, 2023, Technical Note No. 01/2023 was published by the Permanent Committee for the Improvement of Procedures and Guidelines for Examination of Marks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (CPAPD), as provided for by art. 14 of INPI/PR Ordinance No. 491/19.

This is the revocation of Technical Note BPTO/CPAPD No. 02/2022, of January 10, 2022, seeking to improve internal processes, combined with respect for current legal rules and the aspirations of society.

The CPAPD recognized that “cachaça” is a typical name for a traditional Brazilian drink, born in sugar mills in past centuries. “Cachaça” is a product identified with official identity norms and specific qualities.

Therefore, it was established that the term “cachaça” can have different meanings – sometimes geographical indication, sometimes denomination of drink – depending on the context in which it is applied.

As a result of the revocation of Technical Note BPTO/CPAPD No. 02/2022, the formulation of the requirement established in said Note will no longer be applied, both in new registration or amendment requests, as well as in ongoing registration or amendment requests.

The full text of the document is available on the BPTO Portal.

Source: BPTO

Veículos de comunicação bloqueiam rastreio de páginas na internet feito por criador do ChatGPT
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Communication vehicles block tracking of websites made by the creator of ChatGPT

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A tool launched this month by OpenAI seeks to feed its artificial intelligence models. Other sites such as Amazon and Wikihow also denied access.

Several newspapers and media outlets from different countries have decided to block the webpage tracking tool used by OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which seeks to improve its artificial intelligence models.

The New York Times, CNN, Australian broadcaster ABC, and news agencies Reuters and Bloomberg blocked access to GPPTot, the webpage crawler launched on Aug. 8.

Other French media, such as France 24, RFI, Mediapart, Radio France, and TF1, followed suit.

“One thing that will not be tolerated is the unauthorized looting of content,” Radio France president Sibyle Veil said at a recent event.

The bot collects data on the internet

GPBTot’s mission is to collect all data and information from web pages to feed its generative artificial intelligence models.

However, the Californian startup, which made public how to prevent its robot from accessing a website’s data, is facing growing rejection from different publications.

According to Originality.ai, a tool that detects plagiarism, almost 10% of the most important pages in the world were denied access to GPBTot two weeks after its launch.

Amazon.com, Wikihow.com, Quora.com, and the Shutterstock image bank are among them. According to Originality.ai, if this pace is maintained, the proportion of sites prohibiting access to GPBTot will increase by 5% per week.

“There’s no reason why they should benefit from our content for nothing,” said Laurent Frisch, director of digital strategy and innovation at Radio France.

Copyright

Tools of the new generation of artificial intelligence (AI), capable of generating content from fragments of information, such as the ChatGPT text chat or the DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney image generators, have become very popular in the last year.

With a friendly interface, they are tools capable of creating content from simple user commands.

However, the companies responsible for these tools, such as OpenAI and Stability AI, are now facing demands from artists and content producers who allege these tools infringe on copyrights.

– Enough of us being looted by these companies that profit at the expense of our production – complained Vincent Fleury, digital director of France Medias Monde, holding company of France 24 and RFI.

Search for fair remuneration

Executives at some French media outlets also expressed concern that their content could be associated with false information. They call for open discussions on these topics with OpenAI and other AI companies.

– The media must be remunerated fairly. WeBertrand Gié, director of the News Division of the French newspaper Le Figaro, wants to obtain licensing and payment agreements.

The American news agency Associated Press (AP) signed an agreement with OpenAI in July, authorizing it to consult its archives since 1985 in exchange for access to the technology and AI expertise of the laboratory that created ChatGPT.

OpenAI has also pledged $5 million to the American Journalism Project, an organization supporting local news outlets, and an additional $5 million funding to help implement AI technologies.

A consortium of media outlets, including the AFP, Associated Press, and Gannett/USA Today, published an open letter in August urging leaders of AI companies to seek permission before using their text and images to generate content.

Source: O Globo

Pesquisadora gaúcha conquista 41 patentes na área de biotecnologia
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A Brazilian researcher wins 41 patents in the field of biotechnology

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With a significant number of 41 patents obtained in the area of recombinant vaccine development, diagnosis of veterinary diseases, and formulations with antiparasitic action, Sibele Borsuk, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Biotechnology at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), sees closer the transformation of years of studies into innovation, with the possibility of products resulting from these advances reaching the market. The researcher’s performance was recognized with the Futuro da Terra Award in the Innovation and Rural Technology category.

A member of UFPel’s Technological Innovation Committee (CIT) and the Internal Biosafety Commission (CIBio), she leads the institution’s infectious-parasitic biotechnology research group, contributing to advances in an area that still needs to evolve.

Sibele points out that, about recombinant vaccines or third-generation vaccines, there is greater availability of technologies for pets and horses, which are high-value-added animals. “In the niche of production animals (poultry, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle), there are few methodologies available on the market, and, in addition, to have widespread use for the prevention of these diseases in these production species, they need to have a low cost,” he comments.

Its activities have focused on the Development of vaccines and diagnosis of veterinary diseases, with emphasis on caseous lymphadenitis (a condition that affects sheep and goats), bovine neosporosis (one of the leading causes of abortion in sheep), and canine toxocariasis (zoonosis transmitted by parasites shed by dogs in the environment).

In projects related to caseous lymphadenitis, the researcher points out that the results are promising: the group has already tested different types of recombinant vaccines (such as DNA, subunit, and vectorized vaccines) with excellent results in preclinical trials (in mice).

“About 30 vaccine formulations have already been tested with efficacy rates ranging from 30% to 100%. She adds that the ones with the best performance are evaluated in the target species (sheep and goats)”.

Within this project’s scope, the group has 17 patent registrations with the Brazilian Patent Office (BPTO), one of which was granted this year. “For neosporosis, the most important results are for the diagnosis where we standardized a diagnostic method based on the fluorescence polarization technique. It was registered with the BPTO, and we had the patent filed”, she adds. Regarding toxocariasis, the project aims to diagnose different species (including canine and bovine, in addition to analyzing human contact with the T. canis parasite), resulting in two more registered patents.

In total, the projects led by the researcher account for 41 patents (innovation privilege) in the area of Development of recombinant vaccines, diagnosis of diseases of veterinary importance, and formulations with antiparasitic action — of these, the BPTO granted four.

Sibele comments that the most important is related to the production of recombinant vaccines for caseous lymphadenitis. “The BPTO takes around ten years to assess whether the patent has unprecedented technology,” she explains. Only after this evaluation the grant is made to the holder (the institution where the research was carried out and the inventors, including the researcher responsible for the study).

“We have not yet launched any product resulting from the granted patents on the market, but the granting of four patents issued by the BPTO is a crucial step, which qualifies the patent as an innovation, granting its holder the exclusivity of use, commercialization, and production of a certain technology in Brazil,” he explains. “The next step is the search for companies in diagnosing and producing vaccines,” concludes Sibele.

The researcher has been a Research Productivity Scholar in Biotechnology since 2014. She has been an advisor twice for theses and was awarded the Capes de Thesis Award in 2017. She has produced over 80 scientific articles in international journals and three books in recent years. She has already supervised 21 Scientific Initiation students with grants from development agencies, 15 masters, and 14 doctors.

Source: Jornal do Correio