Brazilian brands applicants are still unable to make multiclass brand applications (cases in which a single application includes several classes of products or services) and with a projection of co-ownership (a single application with two or more holders). That’s because these features, which are accessible to foreign applicants who make their requests via the Madrid Protocol, referring to Brazil, remain forbidden to Brazilians. They had been scheduled to start operating on March 9th, but according to the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO), they will have to be postponed again, sine die, due to difficulties in the IT area.
Since before the implementation of the Protocol, ABPI had already been warning the BPTO, as well as entities of the Executive and the Congress, about the risk of situations in which foreign applicants would enjoy advantages to the detriment of Brazilian ones. Given the new postponement, ABPI sent a letter to the BPTO on March 6th, drawing attention “to the extension of a situation of flagrant favoring foreign companies that require trademark registrations in Brazil”.
BPTO’s response – In response to the letter sent by ABPI to the BPTO, the entity’s management invited representatives from IP associations to provide clarifications. According to André Luis Balloussier, director of Brands, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications of the BPTO, for a while, both functionalities shall remain forbidden to Brazilians, for they depend on adjustments in the system that is made available to the BPTO by the World Industrial Property Organization (WIPO). He informed that WIPO will send a technician to the BPTO to solve the problem, but there is no certain date for the normalization of the system.
The meeting was attended by Balloussier and the project manager of the Madrid Protocol, Maria Eugênia Gallotti, both from the BPTO, ABPI’s president, Luiz Edgard Montaury Pimenta, ABPI’s counselor Renata Lisboa, and Rafael Atab, co-coordinator of ABPI’s Trademark Committee. The president of the Brazilian Association of Industrial Property Agents – ABAPI, Álvaro Loureiro and the director of the Paulista Association of Industrial Property – ASPI, Ricardo Vieira de Mello also attended the meeting.
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