Newsletter

The Ministry of Environment published the Ordinance # 01/2017 on the Official Gazette of October 13, which establishes November 6th as the date when SISGEN (a database that will allow parties to register their ABS activities) will start to operate. Moreover, the same ordinance established November 6th as the beginning of the deadline provided by Brazilian Biodiversity Act (Law # 13.123/2015) for parties to regularize their ABS activities.

The NIC.br (Center of Information and Coordination of .BR), the Sentity responsible for implementing projects and decisions of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) by means of registering and maintaining domain names with the country code “.br”, has recently approved resolution CGI.br/RES/2017/031, which implements changes in the liberation process of domain names.

The Ministry of Environment published on its website the new templates of Benefit Sharing Agreements in compliance with the Biodiversity Act (Law # 13.123/2015). In light of such Act, the one who carries out activities of research and development accessing Brazilian genetic resources and traditional knowledge must share the benefits arising out of such activities if they originated a finished product or reproductive resources.

April 12, 2017 was an unusual day for the Brazilian Intellectual Property System. The Brazilian Patent Office (BPO) announced 3 good news for IP owners.

Further to our newsletter 12/16, please be informed that the Brazilian Patent Office issued on 1.March 2017 the Resolution No. 179 revoking Resolution 174, which was addressed in said previous newsletter.

After the ratifications of 2/3 of WTO (World Trade Organization) members, article 31 bis was formally brought into the text of TRIPs Agreement. Such provision aims at allowing compulsory licenses for export in order to meet the needs of countries with insufficient or no capacity of manufacturing drugs. It is a direct result of Doha Declaration on TRIPs Agreement and Public Health of 2001, which aims at striking a balance between IP protection and access to health care.

A fter a very long wait, the Brazilian Patent Office finally published the Examination Guidelines for computer-implemented inventions, which went into effect on 6 December 2016, date on which they were published in the Brazilian Official Gazette. The guidelines underwent a process of public consultation and the final version introduced no relevant divergence from the draft document that had been distributed. A translation of the guidelines is enclosed.

The Brazilian Patent Office’s (BPO) “green patents” prioritized examination proceeding, which was initiated in April 2012 and has been yearly renovated for four consecutive years, has now been reissued on a permanent basis via Resolution No. 175 as per publication made in Brazilian Official Gazette No. 2396 of December 6, 2016.

Resolution No. 174 published by the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office on 6 December 2016 established new rules for Brazilian National Phases of PCT applications regarding assignment of priority rights and the assignment of the application.

Currently, there is a relevant discussion on what may be considered as public performance, particularly with relation to streaming activities. While there is a pending case before the Superior Court of Justice (Special Appeal REsp 1.559.264) where it is discussed whether streaming services may be classified as public performances, the lower Courts are already having their saying in this matter.