Over the weekend, I read that the last week of November the Brazilian Instituto Nacional da Propriedade
Industrial (INP) signed two essential Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
1. INPI and the European Patent Office (EPO) MoU
was based on an Enhanced Technical and Strategic Partnership aims to improve
cooperation between Brazil and Europe in the area of patents. The time frame of
the MoU is a two-year work plan which is agreed between the two institutions.
INPI’s president declared the memorandum as
an important piece which will ‘stimulate investment in innovation and
industrial property, focusing on the generation of new patents, especially in
partnership.’
Both offices also renewed their Patent
Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program among their respective offices.
More information here.
2. INPI and the United States Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO) signed the Patent Prosecution pilot project Highway (PPH). This
will take effect on December 1, 2019.
http://www.inpi.gov.br/noticias/inpi-assina-novo-pph-com-o-escritorio-americano
PPHs do promote work-sharing by, for example, enabling patent
applicants ‘to request accelerated processing in the national phase, where
patent examiners can make use of the work products from the other Office(s).’
In the meantime, the EU keeps negotiating with Brazil as part of the negotiation with Mercosur (Argentina, Uruguay,
Paraguay and Brazil are members of this regional trade bloc).
Brazil represents an important market to both, the US and
Europe. For instance, by 2016, Brazil was placed as the largest economy from
Latin America making 30.8% of the EU’s total trade with the region. Likewise,
by 2018, Brazil was the US’s 9th largest good export market.
