IPTango: USPTO

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Saturday, 26 December 2020

Mexico: the USPTO and IMPI launched the Parallel Patent Grant (PPG) initiative

IPTango December 26, 2020 No comments:

On 7 December 2020, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced the launch of the Parallel Patent Grant (PPG) initiative.

According to the press releases, the PPG results from the Memorandum of Understanding on Technical and Strategic Collaboration (MoU) signed by the USPTO and IMPI on 28 January 2020.

In accordance with the MoU, the two Offices would “implement a parallel patent grant framework that allows IMPI to leverage USPTO search and examination results when granting a counterpart Mexican patent”.

Thus, under the PPG, “IMPI will expedite the grant of a Mexican patent for businesses and individuals already granted a corresponding U.S. patent”. This worksharing arrangement will make “faster for U.S. patent holders to obtain corresponding patents in Mexico”.

As stated by IMPI, approximately 11,000 patent applications filed between 2015 and 2018 may benefit from the PPG.

The PPG is not the first worksharing collaboration between IMPI and the USPTO, given the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program has been implemented since 2011.

Sources: press releases issued by the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property and the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Credit: Image by Guy Dugas from Pixabay.

You reap what you sow: Brazil participation in the Patent Prosecution Highway

Patricia Covarrubia November 11, 2020 No comments:

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program is a fast-track examination of a patent application; an applicant request this accelerated process in the national phase which originated on a foreign office and national patent examiners can use the opinion and preliminary examination from the foreign office. The program aims to promote sharing the work among patent offices but the decision of granting patents still remains under the national office. The program run among offices where they agree to share this practice (for more information see WIPO). Brazil does not form part of the Global PPH as its counterparts Chile, Colombia, and Peru; but since 2016, the office has had several bilateral PCT-PPH agreements: European Patent Office (EPO), PROSUR (pilot), Danish Patent and Trademark Office; United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office, Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, United States Patent and Trademark Office and Japan Patent Office.

Speedy 'Patent' Gonzales

Four years on and the office is noticing an increase in a patent application using the fast-track. This November the Brazilian Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial INPI published the figures noting that ‘from 268 applications in 2019 to 340 by October 2020. Giving an explanation on this fact it recalled that the PPH just started to accept patent processes in any technological field. Back in 2016, the PPH was applicable to the ‘oil, gas, and petrochemical industry’ only. Moreover, just 200 applications were to be accepted while nowadays the number has increased to 400 applications.

INPI also praised that the average time for assessing priority processing requirements has decreased from an average time of 220 days (2018) to 104 days (2020). This is due to ‘simplifying the process flow and using new information technology tools ‘.

According to the Global Innovation Index published by WIPO, in 2020, Brazil ranked 62^nd among 131 economies (innovation inputs 59; innovation outputs 64); ranking 4^th among Latin America and the Caribbean economies.

Latin America keeps speeding...

Patricia Covarrubia October 04, 2018 No comments:

Continuing with yesterdays report and PPHs in Latin America, here comes another one…INAPI (IPO in Chile) and the USPTO (the United States Patent and Trademark Office) had signed a memorandum of understanding for the implementation of the accelerated patent procedure called Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH). The pilot will come into effect from November 01, 2018.

Speeding the process...

As noticed in yesterday news, the program allows national patent applications, which have a favourable resolution issued by the national IPO, to expedite the processing of their corresponding applications, filed with the USPTO – and vice versa.

In Latin America, several bilateral agreements have been signed between national patent offices to promote this project and thus, enabling applications to request, if they wish, the accelerated process PPH. The process is faster because the national offices will share the ‘search’ and ‘examination’ results. Yet, the final decision, that is, the granting will be left to the corresponding IPO.

Source INAPI.
More info on PPH here.

Brazil in the Highway again!

Patricia Covarrubia May 31, 2018 No comments:

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Pilot Project signed by the Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Phase I, was in force until May 10, 2018. The Pilot Project commenced on January 11, 2016, and was scheduled to end on January 10, 2018, but was later on extended until May 10, 2018.

Now the Pilot Project between these two offices have entered into Phase II, commencing on May 10 of this year and until April 30, 2020. By reading the Magazine of Industrial Property (RPI) nº 2470, published on 08 May, one can notice that another industry that will benefit from this project is the ‘information technology’ one – before, the Pilot Project Phase I was applicable to the ‘oil, gas and petrochemical industry’ only. Moreover, to be eligible, the invention needs to be classified with one of the symbols of the International Patent Classification - IPC.

According to INPI, 200 applications will be accepted among which up to 50 patent applications will obtain advantage from the preliminary opinion result obtained by the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Phase I was limited to the first 150 eligible applicants. INPI summarises the PPH stating that ‘Brazilians can use the result of the examination of the patent application in the INPI to accelerate the analysis in the United States and vice versa. Upon entering the program, INPI has issued a final decision in 180 days, on average’. A PPH does not automatically grants a patent, since each national IPO will carry out its examination pursuant to their own legislation and procedures in force.

More information can be found in the Revista da Propriedade Industrial (RPI) nº 2470 (in Portuguese)

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.

'Desperados' for Tequila?

Patricia Covarrubia July 12, 2017 No comments:

For some years, the Mexican producers of tequila have manifested disagreement with the use of the word ‘tequila’ in ‘Desperados’ one of the brands of the company Heineken Enterprise. ‘Tequila’ is an alcoholic beverage native from Mexico, specifically, from the region comprising part of the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Tamaulipas, Michoacán and Guanajuato. It is obtained by distillation and rectification from the agave tequilana blue variety or tequila agave. References to its production date back to 1943, but the efforts to secure legal recognition started in the 1970s after some countries began to produce spirits to whom they called ‘tequila.’ As a result, in 1974 the appellation of origin Tequila was declared.

For its quality and particular flavour, the tequila has earned international recognition as a symbol of the Mexican cultural identity. Since 1993, the Mexican Tequila Regulatory Council (Consejo Regulador del Tequila – CRT) has been the organisation dedicated to safeguard the appellation of origin, and to verify and certify as to whether or not a product complies with the Mexican Official Standard of Tequila (NOM-006-SCFI-2012).

The question in dispute is that the beer ‘Desperados’ does not contain tequila but ‘flavours’ of which 75% is tequila, and yet it uses the word tequila in its trademark. It is noteworthy that such word is highlighted in the trademark because of the high-contrast made by its red letters over the beer’s yellow colour.

Two weeks ago, CNN in Spanish reported the disapproval of the tequila industry with this situation. According to the news agency, the CRT considers that the use of ‘tequila’ in the trademark misleads consumers as the beer Desperados neither has tequila nor is a CRT’s certified product. Consequently, the CRT affirms that ‘tequila’ should no longer be used in the trademark, or that tequila must be one of the ingredients of Desperados. In the same news is informed that a representative of Heineken stated that the flavouring utilised for the production of the beer contains genuine tequila, which is purchased from a member of the CRT.

Apart from the appellation of origin achieved in 1974, in June this year, under the registration number 5225126 the United States Patent and Trademark Office - USPTO granted the Certification Mark ‘Tequila.’ This was the result of a joint action of the tequila industry and the Mexican Government. It would be expected, thus, that the concession of this trademark is presented as another argument against the use that Heineken has been making of the word tequila. Nonetheless, it is important to highlight that Heineken has also achieved recognition of the brand Desperados by the USPTO.

In this state of affairs, no end to this dispute is in sight. However, there is no doubt that whatever its outcome may be; this case is of relevance for trademark law.

Post written by Florelia Vallejo Trujillo
Assistant Professor, Universidad del Tolima, Colombia
PhD Candidate University of Nottingham, UK

Stop the press: job vacancy in Peru

Patricia Covarrubia November 05, 2016 No comments:

Ann Chaitovitz, is the USPTO intellectual property (IP) attaché based in Lima. She kindly has published in linkedin an announcement that may be of interest to our readers in Peru.

At the moment the US Mission Lima is looking for an “eligible and qualified intellectual property attorney” for the position of Commercial Specialist.

The full job announcement can be found here.

Thanks Ann for passing the info.

Innovation & health

Patricia Covarrubia September 27, 2016 No comments:

From Félix Rozanski, Director Ejecutivo del Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo de la Industria Químico Farmacéutica Argentina, we heard that the 7th LATIN-AMERICAN SEMINAR ON: “INNOVATION AND HEALTH” took place last 21-23 September 2016. The event took place at two venues: the Federal Court of Administrative Justice in Mexico City and the Mexican Industrial Property Institute (IMPI).

Image result for medicines biosimilar cartoons

Not only the agenda has to be praised but the quality of the speakers is to be commended. The agenda cover topics such as: Challenges to Promote Innovation and Development in Latin America; Biomedicines: Regulations and access in Latin America; Correct Identification of ‘Biosimilar’; Data Exclusivity; the Linkage between Patents and Health.

Debates and experiences were heard from Judges and lawyers in the handling of technical and controversial cases; Voluntary vs. Compulsory licenses; Medicine Counterfeiting; and the experts from different National Industrial Property Institutes were also engaged in discussions and revealing the experiences and strategic plans in Latin America. Speakers such as Félix Rozanski (Argentina); Sergio Rodríguez Soria (Director Innovation at Production Ministry, Peru); Elke Simon (Patent Division, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Germany); David R. Gerk: Patent Prosecution Highway (USPTO); Albert Keyack (EPO); Freddy Arias Mora (Costa Rica), Professor School of Pharmacy and Patent Judicial Expert; Laura M. Vargas Sanchez (Director, Regulation of Health Products in Costa Rica); Corey Salsberg (NOVARTIS, Switzerland); Eladio Torres Moreno (Pfizer, USA); Francisco Gomez, (Sanofi, México); Luz María Anaya Domínguez (Judge, Specialized I.P. Chamber Administrative Federal Court, Mexico); Ramon Ignacio Cabrera Leon (Judge, Administrative Federal Court, Mexico); Francisco de las Carreras (Judge, Federal Civil and Commercial Second Instance Court, Argentina); Marcia Flores (Judge in the Quito Court of Justice, Ecuador); Jaime Enriquez ( Judge, Administrative Litigations Court, Ecuador); Rubí Lucrecia Gamboa Barrera de Valvert (Judge, First Instance Civil Court, Guatemala); Mónica Rosell (Expert in the Andean Community Court of Justice); Eric Velasco (Panama’s Supreme Court); Lic. Matías Schweizer (INPI, Argentina); Claudia Baez and Belen Cubilla (Patent Office, Paraguay); Nubia Chedid (INPI, Brazil); as many other judges, officials, and experts.

According to Félix Rozanski the most debated issues were:

(a) How to attract private investments to R&D? How to promote cooperation? How to develop regional R&D projects - mainly in the Pacific Alliance?
(b) The international cooperation and the new agreement signed to speed up patent examinations;
(c) The decision making process in the difficult IP litigation with contrasting views between Chilean and Argentine judges as to the role of the judge;
(d) The value of incremental innovations for the national industries and researchers. Example in Argentina where the nationals do not obtain Argentine patents but do patent the incremental innovation in the US;
(d) The compulsory licenses in Colombia and Ecuador and in the latter case the proposed new code on inventions which in practice mean no patents at all;
(e) The drama of counterfeit medicines with Dominican Republic taking the most severe measures in spite of all the difficulties;
(f) The new plans of the Argentine INPI to promote innovation and take into account the examinations in other national patent offices; and
(g) What the new TTP means for the Pacific nations participating and the chances that it will be ratified.

Felix is open to answer any query you may have at cedieduca@cedi.org.ar

Here you can also find a highlight written by the Federal Court for Administrative Affairs, Mexico about the Seminar.

México pone en marcha Procedimiento Acelerado de Patentes (PPH)

Rodrigo Ramirez Herrera @ramahr March 26, 2011 No comments:

Desde el 1 de marzo de 2011 el Instituto Mexicano de propiedad Industrial (IMPI) puso en marcha el sistema de trabajo compartido denominado Procedimiento Acelerado de Patentes (PPH: Patent Prosecution Highway) junto con la Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de Estados Unidos de América (USPTO).

En palabras del Director General mexicano, Jorge Amigo, “las oficinas de patentes en el mundo han adoptado el trabajo compartido para hacer frente a sus retrasos e incremento en el tiempo de examen. El IMPI ofrece un alto nivel de experiencia en el ámbito de patentes y representa un valioso recurso para el trabajo compartido. Nuestra nueva cooperación beneficiará a nuestros titulares de derechos, al evitarse la duplicidad del trabajo y mejorarse la calidad de las patentes”.

Patent Prosecution Highway es una iniciativa que comenzó en 2006 entre las Oficinas de Patentes de Japón y Estados Unidos con el fin de establecer procedimientos acelerados de concesión de patentes compartiendo información entre diferentes Oficinas, de forma que cada una de ellas pueda beneficiarse del trabajo hecho anteriormente por otra, minimizando la duplicación del trabajo realizado por los Examinadores, eliminando atrasos en el Examen y mejorando su calidad. Al mismo tiempo, la empresa o el particular que así lo desee y lo solicite expresamente, obtendría la protección de su patente de forma más rápida y eficiente. En la actualidad quince Oficinas de Patentes de todo el mundo forman parte de esta iniciativa, entre ellas las oficinas de Alemania, Canadá, Corea, Estados Unidos, Japón, Rusia, Oficina Europea de Patentes (EPO), Hungría, Reino Unido y Austria. Se estima que esta práctica, que comienza a extenderse alrededor del mundo, permitiría reducir el tiempo de examen de fondo de patentes desde 27 meses a un plazo aproximado de 3 meses.

La fórmula surgió de la necesidad de los usuarios del sistema de propiedad industrial, empresas, operadores jurídicos, personas físicas e investigadores de extender la protección de sus invenciones en diversos países, lo que se traduce en la inquietud de cumplir con diferentes requerimientos legales y administrativos, demandados por cada uno de los países de manera individual.

En México, según reportó el IMPI, sólo se otorgaron en 2010 a los inventores mexicanos alrededor de 229 registros, de un total de 9 mil 399. Las cifras reveladas por el IMPI cobraron importancia tras el Informe de Resultados de Fiscalización Superior de la Cuenta Pública 2009 que dio a conocer en semanas pasadas la Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF), al determinar que pese al incremento de miembros del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (un total de 17 mil 568 investigadores mexicanos), la producción científica registrada se concentró de manera predominante en las publicaciones (artículos, libros y capítulos de libros), en lugar de apuntar a la generación de desarrollo innovadores.

El director general del IMPI señaló que el número de patentes obtenidas por los inventores de México, pasó de 132 en 2006 a 239 para 2010, por lo que reiteró la importancia de poner mayor énfasis en la dinámica de promover el registro de desarrollos.

Fuente: http://www.am.com.mx

Patentes de "Murtilla" chilena otorgadas en EE.UU.

Rodrigo Ramirez Herrera @ramahr December 07, 2010 No comments:

La murtilla (Ugni molinae Turcz) es un vegetal endémico de Chile de la familia de las mirtáceas, nativa del centro y sur de Chile que se cultiva por sus frutos y por su agradable sabor y aroma usualmente empleado en la gastronomía, especialmente en la fabricación casera de mermeladas, jarabes, postres y licores, así como complemento de pasteles y kuchenes.Es conocido como el berrie nativo del sur de Chile.

Recientemente la USPTO de los Estados Unidos otorgó patentes a dos variedades de este vegetal, la South Pearl INIA (PP21,225) y la Red Pearl INIA ( PP21,273), desarrolladas por el Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA) de Chile. Los investigadores Ivette Seguel y Adolfo Montenegro lograron desarrollar con estas variedades mejores características agronómicas, de estructura y de calidad lo que permitirá avances en su cultivo.

Nuevo fármaco contra la epilepsia desarrollado en Argentina patentado en EE.UU.

Rodrigo Ramirez Herrera @ramahr September 27, 2010 No comments:

Investigadores de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP) han desarrollado un nuevo fármaco antiepiléptico diseñado para eliminar los efectos secundarios que producen las drogas convencionales en los pacientes que sufren esa enfermedad. El desarrollo del nuevo profármaco está a cargo de un de equipo de investigación que lidera el director de la Cátedra de Clínica Medicinal de la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Luis Bruno Blanch.

El nuevo profármaco es un compuesto de myo-inositol y ácido valproico, el agente antiepiléptico más utilizado en el mundo para el tratamiento de varias formas de epilepsia.La Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) estima que esta enfermedad afecta al 1% de la población mundial (50 millones de personas), de las cuales 40 millones pertenecen a los países en vías de desarrollo y se incrementa anualmente en 2 millones de nuevos casos en el mundo.De esos nuevos casos, existe una marcada diferencia entre la población de los países industrializados, donde el porcentaje es 0,5-0,7% respecto al 1,9% de los países en vías de desarrollo, la cual es cuatro veces mayor.

La nueva fórmula se encuentra en la fase de ensayos preclínicos (pruebas con animales) y según informó la Universidad ya obtuvo su patente de invención en la USPTO de los Estados Unidos Nº 7,763,650 y en Argentina (segundo país donde se solicitó registro) sigue en curso su tramitación.

Para llevar a cabo el proceso la facultad de Ciencias Exactas inició los trámites de patentamiento en la dirección de Propiedad Intelectual de la Universidad que, para efectos de realizar las búsquedas internacionales del estado del arte, recurrió a recursos gratuitos de la Organización Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual (OMPI), según se informó.