News

General bill for protection of personal data is approved in the Brazilian Senate

01/08/2018

The Brazilian Senate approved on July 10, 2018, Bill No. 53, which rules the protection of personal data and defines the circumstances in which these data can be collected and treated by both companies and the Public Authorities.
With this measure, Brazil joins several countries in the world, which already have legislation on the subject. The text disciplines the way information is collected and handled, especially in digital media such as personal registration data or even texts and photos published on social networks.
The PLC 53 considers personal data the information related to a person who is “identified” or “identifiable”. That is, the bill also regulates the cases where the data alone, does not reveal to whom it would be related to (an address, for example) but that, processed along with other data, could indicate who the person is (address combined with age, for example).
A special category, called “sensitive” data, has been created, covering race records, political opinions, beliefs, health status and genetic characteristics. The use of this data is more restricted since it carries risks of discrimination and other damages to the person. There are also differentiated parameters for processing information from children, such as requiring parental consent and prohibiting the provision of records to participation in applications (such as social networks and electronic games).
The bill covers treatment operations carried out in Brazil or from data collection done in the country. The standard also applies to companies or entities that offer goods and services or treat information of people who live in Brazil. International data transfer (as in the example above) is also permitted when the country of destination has a level of protection compatible with the Brazilian law or when the company responsible for the treatment proves that they guarantee the same conditions required by the instruments such as contracts or corporate standards.
Treatment for personal, journalistic and artistic purposes was not included in the obligations. Information processing is also not covered in national security, public safety, and law enforcement activities. The text indicates that these topics should be dealt with a specific law. The Public Power also gained the possibility of processing data without the consent of the people, in certain situations, as in the execution of public policies. For this, the website must inform in which hypothesis the processing of data is realized, its purpose and what are the adopted procedures.
You can find the official publication (in Portuguese) here

News

The Brazilian PTO implements PPH Program with the UKIPO

24/07/2018

The BPTO published on July 24, 2018, the Rule #222/2018 implementing the PPH Pilot program with the UKIPO, that intends to speed up the examination of pending Brazilian applications with an application from the same nature allowed by the UKIPO.
The Program will accept applications belonging to patent families whose earliest application has been filed at the BPTO or the UKIPO or, in case of a PCT application, the BPTO or UKIPO was the receiving office.
The program will accept application from the technical field of “Biotechnology”, ” Machinery and electrical devices, energy “, “Audiovisual Technology”, “Telecommunications”, “Digital Communication”, “Basic Communication Processes” , “Computer Technology”, “IT Methods for Management” and “Semiconductors”. The application must be classified under the IPC codes list to be accepted, with the exception of drug-related applications which are not allowed in this program .
The table below summarizes the International Patent Classifications accepted by this program:

TECHNICAL AREAIPC CODE
Biotechnology(C07G, C07K, C12M, C12N, C12P, C12Q, C12R, C12S) except A61K
Machinery and electrical devices, energyF21#, H01B, H01C, H01F, H01G, H01H, H01J, H01K, H01M, H01R, H01T, H02#, H05B, H05C, H05F, H99Z
Audiovisual TechnologyG09F, G09G, G11B, H04N-003, H04N-005, H04N-009, H04N-013, H04N-015, H04N-017, H04R, H04S, H05K
TelecommunicationsG08C, H01P, H01Q, H04B, H04H, H04J, H04K, H04M, H04N-001, H04N-007, H04N-011, H04Q
Digital CommunicationH04L
Basic Communication ProcessesH03#
Computer Technology(G06# except G06Q), G11C, G10L
Information Technolgy Methods for ManagementG06Q
SemiconductorsH01L


To be accepted on the BPTO-UKIPO PPH Pilot Program, the application must:
i) Have been filed for more than 18 months or published by the WIPO (when applicable);
ii) Have the corresponding technical exam duly paid; (in case of divided patent applications, they must request priority procedure to all of them);
The participation of the application in the BPTO-UKIPO PPH Pilot Program shall be requested by any or all the applicants.
The BPTO-UKIPO PPH Pilot Program starts on August 01, 2018 and will receive applications up to July 31, 2020. Each applicant can only file one patent application per month, except during the last month of the project, when there will be no limit of number of applications for applicant. The project is limited to 100 applications accepted into the BPTO-UKIPO PPH program per year (limit of 200 accepted applications during the entire program).

Amongst other documents requested by Rule #222/2018, the applicant must submit with the application, documents proving that the application meets the requirements; a table including the correspondences between the BR application claims and the UK allowed claims and a copy of non-patentary prior art documents.
The BPTO will evaluate the applications according to its request date, and applications that do not meet the requirements will either be given the opportunity to correct any irregularity, case in which the BPTO will issue an office action which must be replied to within 60 days, or be denied participation in the PPH Pilot Program, case in which it will return to the regular line of examination.
The original Portuguese version of Rule #222/2018 is available here.

News

Brazilian Supreme Court will judge 'pipeline' patents

20/07/2018
An action that questions the constitutionality of the legal provisions dealing with pipeline patents should be tried in September. Also called import or revalidation patents, they were granted to patented products abroad, but these patents were already in the public domain.
The justification of the Brazilian General Attorney of the Republic (PGR) is that these legal provisions allowed patents granted abroad to be automatically applied in Brazil without substantial verification of the qualities and innovations of the product, with a maximum duration of 20 years. More than 1,100 patent applications were granted automatically in 1997. But, today, they have fallen into the public domain.
One of the arguments about unconstitutionality is precisely in its legal nature, since it seeks to make patentable, to the detriment of the principle of novelty, that which is already in the public domain, promoting the legislator, thus, a kind of expropriation of a common good of the people without any constitutional protection.
According to such experts, pipeline patents favored foreign multinationals that privatized – without paying anything to the treasury – technology that was already in the public domain.
Tha judgement would be important to show that the Brazilian Supreme Court understands that it is not possible to enact a law and give patents to technologies that were already old, and already known, in this way, it would be possible to recognize the nullity of patents and the consequent return of money that was sent abroad.
Others claim that these patents are constitutional since all necessary requirements for them to be valid were fulfilled. The revalidation regime abroad is not an exclusivity of Brazil. Any decision to the contrary would generate much legal uncertainty, according to other experts.
The official publication about this case can be found here
News

Brazil ranks 64th in global innovation ranking

13/07/2018
Brazil has gained a better position in the world ranking of innovation organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in partnership with Cornell University and the Insead business school. The country ranks 64th out of 126 listed economies.  Compared to the 18 Latin American and Caribbean economies, Brazil appears in the sixth position. Switzerland is the leader in the ranking, followed by Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, Singapore, the USA, Finland, Denmark Germany and Ireland.
According to the publication, the Brazilian raise, which went from the 69th position to the current 64th, was due to an increase in research and development expenses, high technology imports and exports and the quality of national scientific information. In this topic, the study emphasized the materials published by the University of São Paulo (USP), Campinas (Unicamp) and also the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).
Methodology
The Global Innovation Index (GII) ranks 126 economies and classify based on 80 indicators, from patent fees to the development of smartphone applications, education spending, and scientific and technical publications.
You can read the official publication at the WIPO’s website here
News

BPTO's production grows strongly in the first semester of 2018

09/07/2018
During the first half of 2018, the BPTO’s production grew strongly compared to the same period of 2017. This increase also allowed the total number of decisions between January and June of this year to be above the current demand of the same period, leading to a reduction in waiting time.
Considering only grants, the most significant increase in the first half of 2018 was in industrial design, which reached 111.9%, going from 2,355 to 4,990 grants.
In the area of patents, the grants between January and June of 2018 grew 81.7%, rising from 3,164 to 5,749. In trademarks, the number of grants was 71.6% higher, increasing from 49,598 to 85,099.
In addition, the number of registration of computer programs increased from 2,670 to 3,270, with a 22.5% variation.
When considering the total number of decisions of the BPTO (grants, rejections, and filings), the numbers are equally expressive. These results show that, with more decisions than requests in the first half of this year, the tendency is to reduce the stock and, therefore, the waiting time until the grant.
In this comparison between decisions and applications from January to June 2018, trademark decisions (179,185) were 82.3% higher than the requests in the period (98,297). In patents, decisions (19,884) exceeded applications (13,574) by 46.5%.
With the implementation of the electronic application, the computer program service also had an excellent result: production (3,270) was 199.7% higher than the 1,091 applications.
In industrial design, the total decisions reached 6,962, or 144.5% above the 2,848 applications in the first half of the year.
*Translated and adapted from the BPTO’s official web page. You can read more here
News

Brazilian Institute Butantan will export dengue vaccine to the world

06/07/2018
With a patent filed in the United States, Butantan Institute will be able to export the vaccine technology to the Northern Hemisphere, that is currently facing dengue cases. In this way, the project will gain even more international visibility.
According to the Institute’s director, the vaccine development started in 2007, but the result of the patent came after almost a decade in 2015. Having already passed through the steps that analyze its safety, conducted with about 14,000 volunteers, the vaccine developed is in its third phase to verify its effectiveness. The director says that the research is already becoming a product and hopes that by 2020 it will be available to the population.
The success of the vaccine also comes from the fact that around R$ 300 million (around US$70 million) was invested by the public sector. The importance of this type of investment is highlighted by the Institute, since there are many patent registrations in Brazil that cannot evolve due to lack of financial resources.
*translated and adapted from Sao Paulo University webpage. The original publication can be found here
News

Brazilian PTO makes available digital collection of its official bulletin

03/07/2018
In order to improve processes and procedures, the Brazilian PTO is making available more than one thousand editions of the Industrial Property Official Bulletin, including number one. The publications can be found on the BPTO’s official website.
Thus, the Institute increases the volume of technical information available and also facilitates the interaction with users.
This work has also a historical value, since the digital collection, composed mostly, of unique copies of the Bulletin filed at the Institute. In the first copy, dated April 4, 1972, for example, it is possible to observe the economic scenario of the time, the importance of technology transfer policy and the reasons for non-patenting of chemical, pharmaceutical and atomic nucleus.

*translated and adapted from the BPTO’s official web page. You can read the original publication (in Portuguese) here

News

Pilot program for the issuance of pre-examination opinions is extended by the BPTO

28/06/2018

The Brazilian PTO issued an official publication on June 26, 2018, in its official Bulletin #2477, to inform the extension of the pilot program for the issuance of pre-examination opinions to expedite the substantive examination of patent applications filed up to 2016 at the Office.

In this pre-examination opinion, the BPTO may issue an Office Action, listing the foreign patent applications to be considered for that matter. After its publication, the applicant will have 60 days to reply to the office action, amending its application to comply with the objections and to the BPTO’s current guidelines.
The official publication is available at the BPTO’s website and can be downloaded here
News

Amazon plant jambu has 433 patents around the world

22/06/2018

The substance “espilantol”, extracted from the jambu that causes the sensation of numbness in the mouth, is a focus of interest of researchers. Jambu is found in the Amazon and widely used in cooking and may still be an option for a new anesthetic, especially for dentistry.
The plant, which has several other medicinal properties is studied by researchers and academics from around the world. Patent registrations are made to preserve these studies.
According to the Brazilian Patents and Trademarks Office (BPTO), there are 433 applications and registrations of patents related to jambu, requested not only through the BPTO but also by other patent institutions around the world required by research centers, companies and organizations.
Japan has 137 applications and patents granted using the plant, equivalent to 32.16%. Followed by the US, which has 102 applications and patents (23.94%), France with 55 (12.91%), Spain 36 (8.45%) and China 26 (6.10%). Brazil registers 15 patents and applications that are being analyzed related to jambu, a percentage of 3.52%, and Germany with 10 applications and patents (2.35%) and Great Britain with seven (1.64%).
*Translated and adapted from a Brazilian website. The original publication (in Portuguese) can be found here

News

BPTO grants Geographical Indication for Socol Product

19/06/2018

The BPTO granted on June 12 the Geographical Indication (GI) registration, for the socol product, a pork sausage produced by descendants of Italian immigrants in the area of Venda Nova do Imigrante (ASSOCOL), in the state of Espirito Santo.
The grant was published in the BPTO’s official Bulletin No. 2475 on behalf of Association of Socol Producers of Venda Nova do Imigrante (ASSOCOL).
The name socol is related to the traditional form of production of the sausage: tied in strips that refer to the vertebrae of the pig’s neck, it was called “so colli”, which, in the dialect of Veneto, the Italian region of origin of many immigrants, is how they called the bones of the neck. Over time, in Brazil, the name of the product was derived for socol.
Currently produced with pork loin, salt, black pepper and garlic, socol not only rescues the culture of immigrants, but also values the traditional know-how of the product. Produced initially for the families’ own consumption, it has gradually become a profitable activity and is considered one of the symbols of local culture and identity, stimulating even agrotourism.
The area to be considered as an indication of origin is located in the northeastern part of the city of Venda Nova do Imigrante, located in the State of Espirito Santo, covering the following regions: Alto Bananeiras, Bananeiras, Lavrinhas, Sede, Tapera, Alto Tapera, Santo Antonio da Serra and Providence.
*Translated and adapted from the BPTO’s official web page. The official publication can be found here