It is known that the president of the BPTO, Cláudio Furtado, has been promoting, under his management, effective measures to improve the institute and the intellectual property system in Brazil. However, he was surprised by the Technical Note issued by the Ministry of Economy on December 9th, proposing the extinction of the BPTO, and the transformation of ABDI (Brazilian Industrial Development Agency) into the Brazilian Agency for Development and Industrial Property (ABDPI). During lunch on December 12th promoted by ABPI and the Brazilian Association of Industrial Property Agents – ABAPI, at the Rio de Janeiro Yacht Club, he was adamant: “There is no chance of extinction of the BPTO”. Below, a brief interview about the institute’s plans for this year.
Does the Technical Note from the Ministry of Economy proposing the extinction of the BPTO affect the institute’s plans for 2020?
Cláudio Furtado: There is no such hypothesis, it would be a contradiction to what we are doing, with the full support of the Ministry of Economy. 2020 will be a year of great efforts to meet our strategic goals. We are transforming the BPTO into a world-class organization of trademarks, patents, and other rights. Our action plan for 2020 is extremely ambitious and the BPTO is fully equipped to carry it out, but it needs a compatible budget allocation.
Has the Ministry of Economy approved the plan?
CF: Fully. But we need the approval of a legislative amendment to the 2020 Budget Law so that we can fulfill our plan.
What are the main items of the plan?
CF: Staff training, exam improvement, many things. We have a large consulting project that will cover 11 BPTO macro processes, ranging from the area of exams, resizing of the workforce, information technology, consolidating everything we did in 2019.
How to increase the number of Brazilian patent applications?
CF: We are creating a task force to work with Brazilian innovation hubs, small and medium-sized companies, and even large ones. We will transform the reality of just six thousand patents per year to something between 12 and 18 thousand applications entering the BPTO per year.
What is the balance of your management?
CF: We achieved a lot in 2019. The Madrid Protocol opened Brazil to trademark registrations abroad. With the PPH, foreign offices now open the registration of Brazilian trademarks abroad, and foreign here, within the priority regime, with decisions that do not exceed eight months. All of this will be expanded in 2020.
