Argentina INPI – Resolution 112/2019
By José Santacroce, Partner and Head of Patent Department
The Argentine INPI has published on 29 April 2019 Resolution 112/2019 with the objective to accelerate substantive examination of Argentine first filing patent applications.
The text of said resolution is the following:
SEEN the file EX -2019-16551501- -APN-DOINPI, of the Law of Patents of Invention and Utility Models N° 24,481 (t. o. 1996), as amended by laws Nos. 24,572, 25,859 and 27,444, and by the Regulatory Decree N° 260 dated March 20, 1996, Annex II; and
CONSIDERING:
That, today, Argentina is undergoing a transformation and modernization process which aims to an economy growth based on the incorporation of local and world value chains, regarding innovation as the main axis of the productive development.
That, in this frame, the protection of innovations through the system of patents of invention and utility models fulfills a significant role in the competitiveness of firms, especially our PYMES (Small and Medium Sized Companies, from the acronym in Spanish), which invest in innovation and request to protect cash advances and inventions to be afterwards apply to an industrial development.
That this INSTITUTE is adopting several measures, starting with the reform to the proceedings of Patent Law, …
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Brazilian Senate Approves Special Protection Bill of “High Reputation” Brands
By Carlos Cavalcanti, Managing Partner Moeller IP Brazil
The Brazilian Senate Plenary approved on Tuesday (2) the bill that creates rules for special protection of “high reputation” brands. PLC 86/2015 allows the holder of an industrial trademark to request the Brazilian PTO (Inpi) to recognize this title at any time. The text has been modified and will have to be returned to the Chamber of Deputies.
“High reputation” is a classification that guarantees a brand protection in all markets, not just the one in which it operates. With this recognition, no other company can be registered with the same name, even if it is from another branch. Inpi currently recognizes 41 “high reputation” brands.
PLC 86/2015 regulates the Industrial Property Law (Law 9.279 / 96) to specify that “high reputation” may be requested at any time. Currently, only an INPI internal standard addresses this issue. According to the rule, the interested parties must wait for a third party to request the registration of the same mark in another branch.
The text also determines that, in case of approval of the application, the recognition of its “high reputation” will be noted in the trademark register. Thus, the owner of the …
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Overview of Patent Prosecution Highway programs in Brazil
Since 2016, the Brazilian PTO (INPI) has been implementing several Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programs with different PTOs in order to accelerate examination of patent applications and try to reduce the large existing backlog.
Under the PPH program, participating patent offices agree that when an applicant receives a final decision from a first patent office concluding that at least one claim is allowed, the applicant may request expedited examination for the corresponding claim(s) in a corresponding patent application that is pending in a second patent office.
Below is an overview of the PPH programs currently running in the INPI:
- PPH INPI-USPTO: On January 11, 2016, a PPH pilot program started between the INPI and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
During Phase I of the pilot program, which ran until May 10, 2018, the INPI only accepted patent applications in the oil and gas industry.
On May 08, 2018, the INPI published Resolution No. 218/18, which established Phase II of the program. This new phase has been running since May 10, 2018 and will finish on April 30, 2020, or when 200 applications are accepted, whichever occurs first.
The main difference of Phase II …
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