Public Consultation of the DI Manual reinforces good dialogue with INPI

Several suggestions proposed by ABPI in the INPI Public Consultation are incorporated into the 2nd edition of the Industrial Designs Manual, which comes into force on October 2nd. Technical issues were accepted, such as the new wording of items referring to the definition and procedure of the formal exam; as semantic aspects, including the removal of the word “denigrate”, which has a discriminatory nature. The publication of INPI/PR Ordinance No. 36/2023, which establishes the 2nd edition of the manual, took place on September 12th, in the “Communications” section of RPI No. 2,749 and in section 1 of the Official Gazette of the Union (DOU). ) No. 174 .

The contributions presented during the Public Consultation, held between 11/07 and 12/16/2022, were evaluated and responded to by the Permanent Commission for the Improvement of Procedures and Guidelines for the Examination of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (CPAPD) of INPI. “The main improvement of the Manual was the fact that the INPI began to accept the use of several previously prohibited resources, such as the use of dashed lines to represent unclaimed parts or objects, the presence of texts and marks in the drawings, among others”, highlights Rhuan Quintanilha, co-coordinator of the ABPI Industrial Design Commission, which is also coordinated by André de Moura Reis.

Quintanilha confirmed the INPI’s openness to users’ needs. “INPI has been increasingly open to dialogue with system users. As soon as the Public Consultation was published, we had a meeting with members to collect first impressions, and then with INPI to present these impressions and better understand the draft manual. With this, we identified the points that would most deserve our attention when preparing the final version of our suggestions”, he said.

Among the most relevant topics in the 2nd edition of the Manual, the following stand out:

– Possibility of protecting the industrial design of ornamental two-dimensional or three-dimensional configurations applied to electronic devices (e.g.: watertight or dynamic graphic interfaces, icons, typographic families, etc.);

– Possibility of protecting the industrial design of three-dimensional configurations made up of parts with no mechanical connection between them (e.g.: sound equipment made up of a receiver and two speakers);

– Possibility of protecting the industrial design that includes a trademark or the industrial design of the logo;

– Possibility of protecting industrial designs that include textual elements of any nature, in any language;

– Expansion of possibilities for representing the object of registration, especially regarding the representation of unclaimed illustrative elements (e.g. use of dashed lines to represent the renunciation of illustrative elements that are not part of the claim);

– Publication of the conditions for maintaining priority based on the analysis of the correspondence between this claim and the claim in the registration application in Brazil;

– Possibility of presenting and examining priority documentation through the WIPO-DAS electronic access service;

– Publication of parameters for novelty and originality examinations (e.g. examination of the merits of industrial design registration); It is

– Incorporation of guidelines for processing designations arising from the Hague Agreement, as established by Ordinance INPI/PR nº 25/2023.

Access the 2nd edition of the Industrial Drawings Manual (effective from 10/02/2023).

Check out the contributions from the public consultation and the CPAPD’s responses.