The World Congress of AIPPI – Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle – which ended on September 13 in San Francisco, USA, had the outstanding presence of ABPI. The Brazilian delegation comprised the President of ABPI, Gabriel Leonardos; the Vice President Peter Eduardo Siemsen; the Secretary Maria Inez de Araújo Abreu; the São Paulo sectional representative Marcos Chucralla Blasi; and lawyers Rafael Atab, Márcio Merkl, and Cláudia Zeraik, as well as biotechnologist Priscila Kashiwabara and biologist Leonor Galvão, who actively participated in all the Study Questions that resulted in five Resolutions approved in the Congress.
During the event, lawyer Rafael Atab was elected to the Assistant to the Reporter General of AIPPI position for two years. He is the first Brazilian to be part of the entity’s General Rapporteurship, which is responsible for the association’s academic guidance, including the preparation of Resolutions, coordination of Standing Committees, and dialogue with other entities linked to the association. Other ABPI members were appointed or reappointed to the AIPPI Committees, reinforcing the Brazilian entity as one of the outstanding National Groups of AIPPI.
The Resolutions passed in the Congress serve as recommendations for intellectual property legislation and jurisprudence harmonization and improvement. Once approved, they are sent to international entities such as the WTO and WIPO, official industrial property institutes (BPTO, USPTO, EPO, etc.), legislators, courts, and universities, among others, and play an important role in improving and harmonizing local laws of each country and in international treaties.
To approve a Resolution, the Study Committees of each National Group (in Brazil, ABPI’s Committees) respond to scientific questionnaires from AIPPI on a given topic. The Study Groups prepare draft Resolutions, which are circulated among delegates from each National Group for comments and suggestions for amendments. “It is a very important work that the Study Committees and ABPI delegates had, and the participation of the Brazilian group generates recognition of ABPI as a center of excellence in intellectual property in Latin America and the world, says Márcio Merkl, who actively participated in the works.
Among the several activities at the World Congress, ABPI also participated in the meeting with AIPPI’s National Groups, alongside Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile. ABPI was represented by President Gabriel Leonardos and Secretary Maria Inez, who was also present at the meeting of Secretaries and Treasurers of the National Groups, together with Executive Director Erika Diniz.
AIPPI is the world leading scientific association dedicated to the development and improvement of intellectual property laws. Based in Switzerland, it is a non-profit association, which, this year, completed 125 years of existence, with more than 8,000 members from 131 countries. The celebrations began in May 2022 with a seminar held in Brussels, Belgium, culminating in the World Congress in San Francisco.
