“Forget about the idea of the extinction of the BPTO”, said the president of the entity, Claudio Furtado, loud and clear, during a joint end-of-year celebration lunch of ABPI and ABAPI (Brazilian Association of Industrial Property Agents), on December 12th at the Rio de Janeiro Yacht Club. “The BPTO may no longer be a federal autarchy, but intending to become a world-class office”, he added to the approximately 120 people attending the event, which culminated in the inauguration ceremony of the boards of the two entities for the 2020-2021 biennium.
Furtado’s eloquence referred to the Technical Note (SEI No. 8623/2019-09), issued on December 9th by the Ministry of Economy. The proposal, from the technical area of the ministry, included the extinction of the BPTO and its incorporation into the Brazilian Agency for Development and Industrial Property (ABDPI), to be created, which, in turn, would replace the current Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI). The changes would be processed by Provisional Measure and Ordinary Law, sent through SEI letter No. 45056/2019/ME (4603175) and the GABIN Order (4652744) of October 23rd, 2019.
“We were surprised by the release of this Technical Note, because the extinction of the BPTO would be a contradiction to what we are doing to improve services, such as fighting backlog and our accession to the Madrid Protocol”, acknowledged the president of the BPTO. For him, the measure would have as its main objective to release the BPTO from the bonds inherent to its federal autarchy status: with the change of its legal nature, the entity could, among other actions, gain financial autonomy over its budget to outsource activities, implement new systems and hire examiners. “The Ministry of Economy wants the BPTO to have financial autonomy”, he added.
A surplus entity, with estimated revenue of R$ 530 million for 2020, the BPTO could increase its expenses to invest in new projects, such as the outsourcing of pre-search, expected to go into operation in the second half of next year. The president of the BPTO explained that in order to fund the budget for 2020 the entity would need to expand its discretionary expenses from the current R$ 51 million to R$ 72 million, which, by current rules, could only be done through a parliamentary amendment in the Government’s budget projection.
