Colombia was the only Latin America country chosen by the
World Organization for Intellectual (WIPO) to implement the Program of
Assistance to Inventors (PAI). Other countries chosen were Morocco and
Philippines.
The program, as can be guessed by its name, give assistance
to investors. In this particular case the assistance in in the form of free
legal advice to natural and legal persons (of limited resources) to complete
the process of filing patents.
The pilot of this program started back in 2015 and recently
the Deputy Superintendent for Industrial Property (SIC) visited Geneva,
Switzerland to present the balance of the program. It counted 11 projects and
24 lawyers have already been chosen by WIPO to provide services
pro bono.
According to SIC, the project will also help to “reduce the
level of dropouts in the patent application”. In Colombia the withdrawing of patent
applications is approx. 50%.
