Last week during the event LES Pan-European Conference 2012
in Rome, there were some talks and memorandum of understandings (MoU) established – this time the
Brazilian Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (INPI) and the Office
for Harmonisation in the Interior (OHIM). INPI is hearing the European
experience regarding the Community Trade Marks (CTM) and thus, using this as a
reference to South America to create its own system which will be valid
throughout the region --Prosur.
Under the agreement OHIM will conduct training
activities and exchange experiences with the INPI. The objective of Prosur,
which includes Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru,
Suriname and Uruguay, is to expand the quality and agility of intellectual
property services. With this cooperation, INPI will participate in the European
database called TM View, enabling visualization
applications and trade mark registrations by Brazilian users of other systems.
Is this really happening? Are the South American countries
ready for this? As I said in an early post some way back...I just wish that
each country improve its own trade mark registration system first and bring a
culture of registration among their citizens before going regional.
Source INPI.
