Some highlights in the speech of ABPI’s president Luiz Edgard Montaury Pimenta during the celebrating luncheon and inauguration of the elected boards of ABPI and ABAPI for the 2020-2021 biennium, on December 12th at the Rio de Janeiro Yacht Club, included ABPI’s 2020 Congress in Foz de Iguaçu – after many years outside the Rio-São Paulo axis, new partnerships with foreign IP associations and efforts to create, in the Rio de Janeiro’s Court of Justice, courts specialized in intellectual property. He also announced a partnership with the BPTO to present, during the International Trademark Association (INTA) Congress in Singapore, advances in the Brazilian intellectual property system. “Yes, we have to show the world, the major trademark and patent holders, the improvements implemented in our system, such as the fight against patent backlog and our insertion in the Madrid Protocol”, said Montaury Pimenta.
Attending the event, the president of the BPTO Claudio Furtado was invited by Montaury Pimenta to clarify the Technical Note issued by technicians from the Ministry of Economy proposing the extinction of the BPTO. In this regard, Furtado was decisive: “under no circumstances does the government consider extinguishing or slowing down the BPTO”, he said. “It would be a contradiction, considering what we are doing”. The subject was widely discussed among participants of the event. For ABPI’s president, the changes will still take time to happen. “I am not against changes in the BPTO, which can even enable improvements that bring efficiency and features of private management”, said Montaury Pimenta.
Among the authorities who attended the event were the directors of the BPTO Julio Cesar Castelo Branco – Managing Director, and André Balloussier – Trademarks, Industrial Designs, and Geographical Indications Director; the president of the Special Commission on Intellectual Property of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) and ABPI’s vice-president Gabriel Leonardos; AIPPI’s vice president Luiz Henrique do Amaral; the president of ASIPI Elisabeth Siemsen do Amaral; Felipe Dannemann Lundgren, president of the Intellectual Property Commission of OAB-RJ (Brazilian Bar Association – Rio de Janeiro); the president of ASPI (Paulista Association of Intellectual Property) Marcelo Nascimento; the president of the LIDC Brazilian group Paulo Parente, the president of the ABAPI (Brazilian Association of Industrial Property Agents), Ricardo Fonseca de Pinho and the president-elect of the ABAPI (2020-2021), Alvaro Loureiro Oliveira..
At the occasion, Montaury Pimenta expressed support for the pre-candidacy of the Regional Director of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) in Brazil, José da Graça Aranha, present at the event, to the general board of the institution, based in Geneva.
