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Meta “leave” metaverse and says the focus is now on artificial intelligence

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About a year and a half after changing its name from Facebook to Meta and making it clear that it would invest heavily in the metaverse, the company is changing its discourse. The Silicon Valley giant says it is now focusing on advanced artificial intelligence.

In a statement sent to employees on Tuesday, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to lay off another 10,000 employees in the coming months and doubled down on its new focus on “efficiency.”

The pivot to efficiency, first announced last month on Meta’s quarterly conference call, comes after years of heavy investment in growth, including in areas of unproven potential such as virtual reality.

Now, Zuckerberg says the company will focus primarily on cutting costs and optimizing designs. Building the metaverse “remains central to defining the future of social connection” Zuckerberg wrote, but that’s not where Meta will put most of its capital.

“Our biggest single investment is in advancing AI and incorporating it into each of our products,” said Zuckerberg. He agreed with how AI tools can help users of his apps express themselves and “discover new content”, but also said that new AI tools can be used to increase efficiency internally, helping “engineers write better code and faster”.

The comments come after what the CEO described as a “humbling awakening” last year when the “world economy changed, competitive pressures increased and our growth slowed considerably”.

Meta and its predecessor have been involved in AI research for years, but the remarks come amid a heightened AI frenzy in the tech world that started in late November when Microsoft-backed OpenAI publicly launched ChatGPT.

Not to be outdone, Meta announced late last month that it was forming a “top product group” to “supercharge” the company’s work on AI tools.

“I think it’s good to focus on AI,” Ali Mogharabi, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, told CNN of Zuckerberg’s comments.

Mogharabi said Meta’s investments in AI “are beneficial on both ends” because they can improve the efficiency of the engineers who create products and because incorporating AI capabilities into Meta’s lineup of apps will potentially create more time engagement for users, which may generate advertising revenue.

And in the long term, Mogharabi said, “a lot of the AI investments and a lot of the enhancements that come from those AI investments can be applied to the entire metaverse project.”

But Zuckerberg’s emphasis on investing in AI and using technology tools to make the company more efficient and increase its bottom line is also “what shareholders and the market want to hear,” Mogharabi said.

Many investors had already complained about the company’s metaverse ambitions and spending. In 2022, Meta lost over $13.7 billion on its “Reality Labs” unit, which houses its metaverse efforts.

Investors seem to welcome Zuckerberg’s shift in focus from the metaverse to efficiency. After falling sharply in 2022, Meta’s shares have risen by more than 50% since the beginning of the year.

Angelo Zino, the senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, said the second round of layoffs at Meta “has left us officially convinced that Mark Zuckerberg has completely shifted gears, shifting the company’s narrative to one focused on efficiencies rather than looking to grow.” the metaverse at any cost.”

Source: Olhar Digital

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Brazil is officially part of the Hague Convention

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Admission to the Agreement will take effect on August 1 of this year.

In mid -February, Brazil’s adhesion to the Hague Convention for the International Registry of Industrial Designs was made official after the government applied for its membership in the 1999 Geneva Minutes in December 2022. Entry into the agreement will be effective as of August 1st this year.

The process of adhesion to the system began last September when the House of Representatives approved the country’s bonding through Legislative Decree No. 274/22. With its adhesion, Brazil will become the second Latin American country (after Mexico) and the 79th member to join the Convention. Other American countries in the agreement are Belize, Jamaica, Mexico, Sao Tome and Principe, Suriname, Canada, and the United States.

The Hague Convention (in force since 1925) will allow those who have a business or produce industrial designs in Brazil to request their drawings from Brazil in any of the signatory countries through a single international request, Just as they can obtain international protection for their pictures in Brazil if they produce outside Brazil.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), applications must be named after the creator, cannot be submitted through the Brazilian Patent Office (BPTO) (WIPO will administer the international applications), and may include until 20 variants of the projected model. These drawings must belong to the same class or subclass as the Locarno classification and share common characteristics. Brazil will protect the pictures recorded for 25 years.

The postage of the publication of industrial design is prohibited when Brazil has been designated in an international request; The change of holder is also prohibited until the registry receives certain documents and will not be allowed to register in the International Registry of Change of Inventive ownership in Brazil until the INPI has all the certification documents related to this change.

In Brazil, there are six resolutions related to industrial design: Resolution PR No. 232/2019, which provides for the creation of the Industrial Designs Manual (created in January 2019 through Normative Act 232/2019), and the resolutions for the expedited examination request for industrial design application dor sports products, for the delivery of the Electronic Industrial Design Registration Certificate, for the creation of the electronic industrial design module of the electronic industrial property management system, for the deposit of Requests for the filing of industrial designs for applications for geographical indications and the adoption of the international Locarno classification for industrial designs. Similarly, all these resolutions and other provisions are contained in Industrial Property Law 9,279/96, which defines industrial design in article 95, and the regulation of BPTO.

Being part of the Hague system is particularly advantageous, as it allows local designers to take their models outside Brazil and that SHEs and various companies quickly get registration in all contracting countries, avoiding complex and costly procedures, making a single payment for a Single request in a language through a single entity (WIPO) and with the freedom to schedule the publication of your registration.

Source: LexLatin

Intelligent use of intellectual property rights can give prizes
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Intelligent use of intellectual property rights can give prizes

Applications for Wipo Global Awards are open, a boasting award for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) of all sectors of the economy, which use different forms of intellectual property, from copyright to brands, Patents, and geographical indications.

In their second edition, the awards intend to highlight the central role of SMEs’ innovative and creative activities and recognize creators, inventors, and designers who achieve their business objectives based on the efficient use of intellectual property rights and at the same time implement this innovation and creativity for society.

The winners will be entitled to a personalized mentoring program for intellectual property marketing, as well as a program on access to financing opportunities and partnerships.

Source: Sapotek