IPTango: PROSUR

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Monday, 12 February 2018

China and Brazil: taking the highway?

Patricia Covarrubia February 12, 2018 No comments:

February 1st saw the launch of the Instituto Nacional da Propiedad Industrial (INPI)'s Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot project with the State Intellectual Property Institute of China (SIPO). The project will last two years and the application are capped up to 200. The rules of this PPH are found in Resolution 209/2018.

Speeding the process: cake in the staff common room.

Both parties will be able to use the result of the examination of the patent application and so, accelerating the assessment process in the other office. The PPH is a fast-track examination agreement; this is so, because the parties involved enable work-sharing. At first instance, the applicant whose claims have been found to be patentable by either the INPI or SIPO may ask for accelerated processing of their equivalent application that is pending before the other office.

Brazil also has a PPH with the European Patent Office signed back in November 2017. This project will run for two years and will start early 2018 (more information here and here). The EPO only had a PPH with one Latin America country i.e. Mexico. Brazil has three more PPH agreements: United States - until June, 2018 (reported here), Japan, and with the countries members of PROSUR - running from four years and with the probability to be extended (here).

Source INPI.

Patent Prosecution Highway: The Justice ‘Speedy’ League

Patricia Covarrubia July 24, 2017 No comments:

This month Colombia joined the network of the Global Patent Prosecution Highway (GPPH). This network has 22 members from Europe, North America, Asia, Oceania, and now Latin America. From that side of the pond United States and Canada are members [full list of members can be found here].

Patent applicants who have obtained protection in Colombia may request that the same application be reviewed in any of the other members that are part of the GPPH. This global pilot was launched back in January 2014 allowing ‘patent applicants to request accelerated examination at any of the offices involved in the pilot if their claims have been found to be acceptable by any of the other offices involved in the pilot’.

Upon the advantages published by the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC) are:

Offices involved in this type of agreement are recognized as their ‘peers’: this is so because they have a harmonious patent law (patentable subject matter, substantive and procedural law are similar).
Rely on quality systems that guarantee the Seriousness of its acts (ISO 9001).
For applicants there is a greater chance that the patent will be approved because it has already been approved under same procedures and techniques; and the procedure is run in less time and there would be less transaction costs.

Latin America is part of some PPH. For instance Mexico has a PPH with the European Patent Office (the only office in Latin America to have such agreement with the EPO), with Japan (JPO) and has another one with the USPTO. The National offices of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay have also launched a PPH pilot program among themselves (these countries are members of PROSUR). Brazil has one with Chile, and another one with the USPTO. Peru and Spain do have a PPH in place.

While superman is not involved, the league still flies!

Source SIC.

Speeding the Patent Process: a first for Peru

Patricia Covarrubia February 16, 2017 No comments:

This week the Peruvian National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) reported its first request for the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH).
The application came from a Chilean company which is seeking to accelerate the process of granting its patent for a ‘method of manufacture for a concrete slab’.

The accelerated process called PPH: when applying to a foreign jurisdiction a national office may have a PPH, meaning a ‘fast-track examination procedure’. This PPH will usually be an agreement that 2 states or a region may have.

In this particular case Peru has signed an agreement with the member countries of the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia and Mexico). Therefore, when a patent application receives a “favourable opinion on the patentability of an invention in the patent offices of the member countries [in this case from Chile] … Indecopi will take into account the results of that examination”.

The PPH allows the “exchange of information between patent offices, avoids duplication of efforts and accelerates the granting procedures”. Peru recently signed a PPH with PROSUR - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay (see previous post here) and has already signed another one with Spain.

Source INDECOPI.

'it's a new day it's a new life' and I am feeling PROSUR

Patricia Covarrubia January 10, 2017 No comments:

December 2016 saw the last weeks of the year with the eagerness of some Latin American countries to start cooperating more. Therefore, future plans were discussed by PROSUR Directorship Committee.

Back in 2009, WIPO received a letter signed by nine Latin American countries which have agreed on a regional project “to develop a common platform that allows the integration, exchange of information and system compatibility for the nine participating countries.” – known as PROSUR due to involve South (SUR) American countries.

Besides the plans for the new year ahead, the extension of funding was also covered (by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)). The Latin American countries which are part of the PROSUR regional cooperation system of IP are: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay, WIPO also participated. From Central America, Costa Rica also joined the group and there are talks for expansion of PROSUR. That said, PROSUR members “announced the entry of the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua from 2017.” [will this also see the change of the name to PROSURCENTRAL?]

The patent national offices of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay had already started a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program.

Source INPI.

Chile da inicio a acuerdo que permitirá a solicitantes un Procedimiento Acelerado de Patentes (PPH)

Rodrigo Ramirez Herrera @ramahr September 29, 2016 No comments:

A través de una declaración conjunta en Santa Marta, Colombia, se dio inicio al proceso de ejecución e implementación del Programa Piloto de Procedimiento Acelerado de Patentes (PPH) en sus versiones Mottainai y PCT. El acuerdo fue alcanzado por representantes de Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay y Chile.

Este programa conocido como PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway, por sus siglas en inglés), permitirá que los solicitantes que hayan obtenido un pronunciamiento favorable de patentabilidad de parte de INAPI, como Oficina de Examen Anterior (OEA), puedan beneficiarse del trabajo realizado en Chile y solicitar que éste sea tenido en cuenta por las Oficinas Nacionales de Propiedad Industrial de los países involucrados como Oficinas de Examen Posterior (OEP).

Una de las novedades de este acuerdo, será la posibilidad de usar el producto del trabajo internacional PCT que elabore el INPI de Brasil y el INAPI de Chile, como oficinas ISA/IPEA, para beneficiarse del examen acelerado de patente en un país del PROSUR.

La mayor ventaja de este programa es que acelerará el procedimiento de examen de patentabilidad de las Oficinas y reducirá los costos asociados, evitando dobles esfuerzos en acciones administrativas, búsquedas y exámenes de patentes en paralelo por cada Oficina.

Participando del Procedimiento Acelerado de Patentes, los usuarios de solicitudes nacionales que cuenten con una resolución favorable podrán acelerar los tiempos de tramitación de sus solicitudes de patentes de invención o modelos de utilidad en un país miembro de PROSUR, lo que permitirá reducir los costos asociados.

La implementación se realizará conforme a las guías preparadas por parte de las Oficinas de Propiedad Industrial que establecen los requisitos, condiciones y procedimientos para participar en el Programa Piloto PPH, el cual estará a prueba por un periodo de tres años, pudiendo prorrogarse por uno adicional. Posteriormente, se evaluarán los resultados y su demanda para la implementación definitiva. Brasil y Ecuador implementarán PPH una vez que hayan obtenido la autorización interna competente.

Desde el 16 de septiembre de 2016, las guías que le dan operatividad al programa Piloto de Procedimiento Acelerado de Patentes (PPH) están disponibles en las Oficinas de Propiedad Industrial respectivas, junto con los instrumentos necesarios para su utilización.

Fuente: INAPI

Is it really happening? A Regional Trade Mark is on its way for Prosur

Patricia Covarrubia June 14, 2012 No comments:

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.