The president of the ABPI (Brazilian Association of Intellectual Property), Luiz Edgard Montaury Pimenta, participated last June 23, in a virtual debate on the ADI (Direct Unconstitutionality Action) 5,529 and its effects on the patent protection term promoted by the Committee of Intellectual Property of AMCHAM Rio. The theme has been recurrent on the ABPI’s agenda in lectures, debates, interviews in the media, on social networks, and even generated a manifesto for the entity in a large-circulation newspaper. In all these forums, the ABPI defended the constitutionality of the Sole Paragraph of Article 40 of the Industrial Property Law (Law 9,279/1996).
On May 12 last, the Plenary of the Federal Supreme Court decided that patents on pharmaceutical products and processes and equipment and/or materials in health use already granted will no longer have the extended term provided for in the sole paragraph of article 40 of the Property Law Industrial (Law 9,279/1996). The declaration of unconstitutionality of the provision does not reach, however, other patents already granted and still in force due to the extension of the term and starts to take effect from the publication of the minutes of the judgment of ADI 5529. Montaury Pimenta paid attention to the legal uncertainty and the disincentive to investment caused by the decision.
The webinar also had the participation of the Director of Patents, Computer Programs and Topographies of Integrated Circuits at INPI (National Institute of Industrial Property), Liane Lage, who highlighted the understandings made with the ABPI and other associations to define the best way to deal with patents that can remain in a gray area, giving their holders a chance to clarify where and how to frame them.
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