ABPI lists six proposals in the National Intellectual Property Strategy

The priority for increasing the number of patent applications by Brazilian private companies, financial autonomy of the BPTO, and maintaining the fight against the patent backlog, among others, were the suggestions presented by ABPI in the meetings for the formulation of the National Intellectual Property Strategy – ENPI, carried out virtually in late March and early April, under the Ministry of Economy.

At the meetings, ABPI was represented by its president Luiz Edgard Montaury Pimenta, the 1st vice president Gabriel Leonardos, and lawyer Gustavo Morais, coordinator of this topic at ABPI. The association noted that the ENPI needs to take into account, in addition to pharmaceuticals, all technological areas. According to the BPTO, of the total of 831,936 patents and patent applications in force in Brazil, 65,077, or 7.8%, are related to drug patents, the rest being distributed in various technological areas. The suggestions made by ABPI were:

1. Institution of unbureaucratic tax incentives, so that private companies invest in innovation & technology;
2. Maintenance of the current BPTO policy to fight against the patent examination backlog;
3. Granting financial autonomy to the BPTO, as provided for in PLC 143/2019;
4. The hiring of retired examiners to outsource patent searches, in line with what is already happening with the Japan Patent Office, and recently authorized in Brazil concerning the INSS (Brazilian Social Security Institute) retirees;
5. Preservation of the IPL, with only minor changes, namely: (i) the modification of art. 32 to allow changes in the patent application after the examination request (if supported by the originally filed matter), as is the international practice; and (ii) facilitation of the granting of patents in the area of ​​biotechnology, aiming to stimulate sustainable economic exploitation of the Brazilian biodiversity – in particular, art. 10, IX of the IPL must be modified to allow the patentability of substances isolated from nature;
6. Modification of art. 689, VIII of the Customs Regulation (Decree No. 6.759/09) so that it starts to order that the customs authority necessarily and immediately destroy or give a social destination to the goods seized in cases of IP piracy, as already decided by the STJ in Resp nº 725.531-PR.