Under the theme “IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future”, ABPI, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), the BPTO (Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office), and GIPI (Interministerial Intellectual Property Group of the Ministry of Economy) opened, last Tuesday, April 26th, the series of events commemorating World Intellectual Property Day.
Two young entrepreneurs participated in the first day of debates, Sara Raimundo, co-founder of the startup Unicainstancia, and Alan Lopes de Barros, product manager at Lumx Studios. The professor at the National Faculty of Law at UFRJ and the BPTO Academy, Kone Cesário was the mediator.
When opening the proceedings, ABPI’s President Gabriel Leonardos drew attention to the challenging moment, which, according to him, requires mobilization of all concerned with the IP system and the drop in the number of patent applications in Brazil. “We need to come together to recognize the importance of IP. Studies commissioned by ABPI show that IP-intensive companies are also the ones that add the most value, pay the best wages and create the most wealth,” he noted.
Also attending the event were Jackline de Souza Conca, the vice president of GIPI; Taia Ribeiro, the executive director of the BPTO; David Kellis, representative of the USPTO; Kenji Kainuma, a representative of the Japan Patent Office and Isabella Pimentel, a counselor of WIPO. The event featured a special message from WIPO Director General Daren Tang.
Sara presented a solution developed within UFRJ by Unicainstancia, a startup that supports consumers in guaranteeing their rights. “Today, we have a system that removes citizens from their rights with a bureaucratic and inaccessible language. We all know how long a court case can take.” She recalled that the company was born in the middle of the pandemic and received investments and awards.
Alan showed that Lumx, a company that introduces brands into the metaverse, also develops experiences aimed at NFTs and Web 3.0. Lumx recently launched its own NFTs collection, 55Unity, with the creation of over 3,000 tokens. “I come from the area of Law and Intellectual Property, which was a great school for me.”
In her speech, Kone Cesário asked the audience to unite for the mandatory inclusion of the Intellectual Property discipline in law courses. “Here, we have two representatives from a range of brilliant students who are also intellectual property creators,” she said.
The celebrations for World IP Day involved events throughout the week. The workshop “Entrepreneurship, IP and NFTs” was held on April 27th, with a presentation by Victor Armellini from NFTrend. On April 28th, the debate addressed “Entrepreneurship, IP and Info producers” with a presentation by entrepreneur Thalita von Schmidt. The workshop “Science and Technology: Research with Stem Cells” was held on April 29th, presented by veterinarian Luciana Rodrigues de Almeida Figueiredo, founding partner of Cellen, and mediated by the coordinator of the UFRJ Innovation Agency, Kelyane Silva.
You can watch the opening event of IP Day on the ABPI YouTube channel.
