With a community of more than 20 million users, businesses in the order of $ 190 million and exponential growth of around 7% per year, mobile applications are the craze of the moment in the world of the creative industry. The intellectual property rights involved in creating and using these applications were at the center of the debate on the webinar “Intellectual Property and Mobile Applications” between Noam Shentov, from the Center for the Study of Commercial Law at Queen Mary University, London, and Dimitier Gantchev, from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), under the mediation of the partner of Veirano Advogados, Fábio Pereira. The event, from the IP Meetings series, promoted by ABPI – Brazilian Intellectual Property Association and WIPO, had the opening table of the president of ABPI, Luiz Edgard Montaury Pimenta, and the regional director of WIPO in Brazil, José Graça Aranha.
In her presentation Shemtov dealt with the various forms of protection of mobile applications – copyright, patents, industrial design and business secrets – and stood out as the most important item in the structure of these devices, a graphical interface, through which the user interacts with the product. “In most cases, the greatest value is without the graphic interface design,” he added. According to him, code, algorithm, and an internal structure of the application can, in many cases, be better protected by trade secret than by patent. “However, protecting a graphical interface through secrecy is not effective if after the product is launched,” he said.
Gantchev, for his part, announced that WIPO is developing some tools for mobile applications, which will soon be available to software developers mainly to answer questions and promote increased revenue in the field of intellectual property. One is for dispute resolution, another for monetization and a third reference is a manual on contractual issues. The latter is a PI toolbox for mobile application developers, which should be ready by the end of this year. “Mobile applications are the most dynamic part of the creative industry and their growth potential is great,” said the WIPO representative.
The Webinar is available on the ABPI Channel on Youtube.
Watch the video, with original audio in English by clicking here.
Watch the video with simultaneous translation by clicking here.
