News

Very recently, by means of Resolution 113/2013, the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office, henceforth the INPI, declared a change in its interpretation of the restoration clause that was inserted by the legislators in Law 9279/96 — the Brazilian Industrial Property Law[1].

This restoration clause gives to those that did not pay an annuity during the regular and extended terms, the opportunity to revive their case after a notice communicating its forfeiture is published.

Until the advent of this new interpretation, a single notice could be published in connection with a set of unpaid annuities. Actually, as the INPI had very little control over the annuity fees that were paid, it was quite common that many years would pass before a notice was published. Therefore, whenever it came to be published, the notice would inform that the forfe

As of February 1st, when Federal Law No. 12,846 will come into force, Brazilian and foreign companies in the country will face a new and different scenario in their relations with public entities. This is because this law, which has been popularly known as the “anti-corruption law”, comes to combat and severely punish any and every act committed by companies, their representatives, suppliers and business partners who violate or cause damage and injury to the domestic or foreign public assets, against principles of public administration or against the international commitments assumed by Brazil.

On August 19, 2013 the Brazilian PTO published the Resolution number 17/2013, which sets the new rules for recognizing the highly reputed trademark status. This resolution will be enforced on the date of the publication of the new official fees for this procedure, but, until now, the BPTO has not estimated yet when it will be published.

The main innovation brought by this Resolution is the adoption of a standalone procedure, which allows the titleholder to require, at any time, the recognition of high reputation for its trademark before the Brazilian PTO. This request can be made when registering the mark, without the need of third parties' procedures.

Since July 15, 2013, the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (INPI) started offering a voluntary mediation service for administrative disputes arisen from trademark proceedings. Such alternative may help decreasing the number of current disputes as well the time for their solution and backlog. Moreover, it may facilitate internation parties seeking to settle related disputes in multiple jurisdictions.

Brazilian PTO’s new Resolution No. 80 of March 19, 2013 sets forth rules for granting priority examination for patent applications related to pharmaceutical products and processes, and equipments and materials related to public health

The Brazilian PTO published Resolution No. 80, on March 19, 2013 in the Official Gazette, which establishes the proceedings for requesting priority examination of patent applications related to pharmaceutical products and processes, and equipments and materials related to public health. We are pleased to hereby enclose a complete English language version of the resolution for your review.

According to the new resolution, now in full force, priority for the examination of patent applications related to public health may be requested by:
(i) The Ministry of Health when the object of the patent is considered strategic to the policies within the National Public Health System (the SUS) — the possibility of having a

The Brazilian Patent amp; Trademark Office (PTO) has recently opened a new Public Consultation, this time on the draft guidelines for the examination of patent applications in the biotechnology field. The Public Consultation was published in the Federal Official Gazette on December 5, 2012 and any interested party may make their submissions within a 60-day-term counted as from that publication date.

The new draft provides more definitions and illustrations on biotech subject matter not expressly mentioned in Law # 9,279/96 (ESTs, primers, SNPs, cDNAs, ORFs, fusion proteins, etc.), indicating whether they would patentable or not in view of the main statutory prohibitions found in articles 10, (IX) and 18, (I) and (III) of that Law.

Operational Rule No. 005/2012 was issued by the Brazilian Patent Office on October 30, 2012, ruling on the interference of the Biosafety Law (No No. 11,105 of 24 March 2005) on the granting of Biotechnology patent applications.

This operational rule came as a consequence of previous Brazilian Patent Office's Notification No. 0182-2012-AGU-PGF/INPI/COOPI-ALB-2.2, published on August 21, 2012 in Official Gazette No. 2,172, which considered not to be patentable subject-matter involving genetic use restriction technologies (GURTs) for plants, as set forth by the Biosafety Law (BL).

This BL establishes, in its Section 6º VII, that it is forbidden to: “use, sell register, patent and license genetic use restriction technologies”, these technologies being defined in the sole paragraph of said section as “any process by which human intervention generates or multiplies genetically modified plants to produce sterile reproductive structures, as well as any manner of genetic manipulation that aims a

The Brazilian FDA (ANVISA) has offered, for public consultation, a proposal of a new resolution relative to the prior consent proceedings applied to applications encompassing pharmaceutical products and processes, as set forth in Section 229-C of the Brazilian IP Law.

This Public Consultation #66 was published in the Official Federal Gazette on October 16, 2012, opening a 60-day term for submission of any comments/suggestions on the changes in the examination procedures that will proposedly be applied by ANVISA in the future. Such term of 60 days started on October 24, 2012, when the proposal actually became available to the public, so that anyone is able to make comments and criticize the proposal up to December 22, 2012.,/pgt;

This comes in consequence to previous opinions raised by the Brazilian Federal Attorneyship (AGU) which stated that, upon complying with the dispositions of Section 229-C, ANVISA should limit their analysis to public health factors and should not examine the app

New Resolution No. 291 published by the BPTO on September 4, 2012 establishes new proceedings for nationalizing, in Brazil, applications filed under the PCT ? Patent Cooperation Treaty ? following Rule 49.6 of such treaty.

Rule 49.6 sets forth that the applicant may reinstate the rights after failure to timely enter the national phase, provided that this failure was unintentional or occurred in spite of due care required by the circumstances having been taken.

The major change introduced by this Resolution is the establishment of the procedures applied concerning PCT Rule 49.6, thus including the possibility of reinstating the rights of the applicant with respect to the national phase entry, if the delay in meeting the 30

It is with great pleasure that we announce the opening of a new office and the admission of a new partner on September 1st.

Our new office is located in Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the South of Brazil. In the last decades, this region has attracted investments in all areas, which have fostered the growth of new technologies and the development of new businesses.

We are honored to admit to our partnership, as head of the Porto Alegre Office, the renowned lawyer Fabiano de Bem da Rocha, born and raised in the South. Fabiano is a good friend of ours and a bright professional, who is widely admired in Brazil.

After a long period of darkness on this subject, the BPTO has just released an official communication on how the Coexistence Agreements shall be treated. The former BPTO’s Guidelines for the Analysis of Trademarks (issued in May/1997) formally admitted that Coexistence Agreements excluded the application of the norm contained in Section 124, item XIX, of the Brazilian IP Law, which prohibits the registration of marks that are identical or similar to another previously registered for the same or related goods or services, being susceptible of causing confusion or association with the senior mark.

Notwithstanding the fact that this guideline has lasted for over 13 years, it has always been refuted by the BPTO Attorneys’ Office, under the allegation that the Agreement by itself could never override that statutory prohibition. During the discussions for the revision of the BPTO’s Guidelines for the Analysis of Trademarks, which final version was released in December 2010, the BPTO Attorneys’ Office

After a long period of darkness on this subject, the BPTO has just released an official communication on how the Coexistence Agreements shall be treated. The former BPTO’s Guidelines for the Analysis of Trademarks (issued in May/1997) formally admitted that Coexistence Agreements excluded the application of the norm contained in Section 124, item XIX, of the Brazilian IP Law, which prohibits the registration of marks that are identical or similar to another previously registered for the same or related goods or services, being susceptible of causing confusion or association with the senior mark.

Notwithstanding the fact that this guideline has lasted for over 13 years, it has always been refuted by the BPTO Attorneys’ Office, under the allegation that the Agreement by itself could never override that statutory prohibition. During the discussions for the revision of the BPTO’s Guidelines for the Analysis of Trademarks, which final version was released in December 2010, the BPTO Attorneys’ Office

On 20 July 2012, Law No. 12,689, of 19 July 2012, was published in the Federal Official Gazette. This law seeks to create generic veterinary medicinal products in the country and to establish rules concerning the marketing authorisation of such products to be applied by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Supply (MAPA).

In brief, two new categories of veterinary medicinal products have been created in addition to the existing reference veterinary drugs: similar (“branded generic”) and generic medicinal products for veterinary use.

According to Law No. 12,689/12, a similar veterinary medicinal product shall mean a medicinal product which has the same active substance, the same concentration and pharmaceutical form as the reference medicinal product for veterinary use, but which excipients may or not be identical, always being identified by its trade mark. Law No. 12,689/12 has apparently not considered a similar veterinary medicinal product to be interchangeable with the re

Following our recent newsletter on ANVISA’s role in the examination of pharmaceutical patent applications, this is to briefly inform that the Brazilian PTO has started forwarding cases to ANVISA’s consent before substantive examination has begun, in accordance with the guidelines suggested by the Interministerial Working Group (GTI), through Ordinance No. 1,065, of 24 May 2012.

Please note, however, that neither ANVISA nor the Brazilian PTO has yet issued normative acts indicating whether the GTI’s guidelines suggested would actually be adopted and, in the affirmative, to what extent. Yet, the Brazilian PTO has claimed, in the accompanying letters sent to ANVISA with patent applic

As you may be aware, due to article 229-C of the Brazilian IP Law, as amended by Law No. 10,196/01, whenever a patent application claims a pharmaceutical product or process, consent from the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) is also required prior to granting the desired patent. This provision, however, has been the source of never-ending controversy and subject to growing attacks since it entered into effect in 2001.

The lack of statutory power of ANVISA to analyse patentability requirements of pharma applications was supported by the Attorney-General’s Office in legal opinions published in 2009 and 2011. Indeed, in their opinion, ANVISA should only make health-based assessments of applications sent for prior consent; prior consent should only be denied to applications in instances that granting the patents would pose health risks. How ANVISA would assess “health risks” on the basis of the information included in patent applications was left unanswered though.