In Plenary 1, ABPI President Gabriel Leonardos praised the “healthy government openness to all spheres of civil society.” The session focused on the Brazilian National IP Plan and featured Juliana Ghizzi Pires, Director of the Department of Intellectual Property Policy and Quality Infrastructure at the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services (MDIC), and Júlio César Moreira, President of the BPTO (Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office).
Leonardos proposed that public hearings include reducing the trademark expiry period from five to three years and making the public declaration of trademark use mandatory in the fifth year of its validity. According to the President of ABPI, there are over three million trademarks in Brazil, with many of them inactive. “The accumulation of unused trademarks is a hindrance to the emergence of new brands, he argued.
Leonardos moderated the debate, which also featured Peter Eduardo Siemsen, 1st Vice President of ABPI. In his intervention, Siemsen highlighted the presence of two former BPTO presidents, Jorge Ávila, and Cláudio Furtado, at the congress. He also reaffirmed the fight for BPTO’s financial autonomy, a longstanding ABPI banner.
