Brazil yesterday signed an agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), through which the country will share patent information with the MPP. The Brazilian IP office joins several others in an effort to regular update of the MPP’s database on patent information. Separately, high-level representatives of Latin American and Iberian countries met on the side of the annual World Intellectual Property Organization General Assemblies taking place this week.
Chan Park, General Counsel of the MPP, and Luiz Pimentel, President of the Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property
According to Chan Park, general counsel of the MPP, the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Brazil is in the context of MedsPaL, a global database hosted by MPP and providing information on the patent and licensing status of selected HIV, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and other patented essential medicines in low- and middle-income countries.
Keeping the database up to date is a challenge, and entering into formal relationships with national patent offices allows for easier information collecting of the status of patents, Park told Intellectual Property Watch.
Brazil has agreed to answer 30 requests a year on patents. According to Chan, this is a standard number of requests from patent offices in MPP MoUs.
By signing this MoU said Samo Conçalves, of the Brazilian Permanent Mission, Brazil is contributing to MedsPaL and providing its share in the initiative. Having information on the legal status of patents brings a lot of benefits, helps reduce the price of medicines, and is very useful for procurement, he told Intellectual Property Watch.
The MPP already has agreements with several national and regional patent offices: the Argentina National Institute of Industrial Property, Chile National Institute of Industrial Property, Dominican Republic National Office of Industrial Property, Ecuador Industrial Property Institute, El Salvador National Registry Center, and South Africa Companies and Intellectual Property Commission,
Also in collaboration with the MPP is the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), and the European Patent Office (EPO). The MPP agreements with those two regional offices facilitate the automatic update of some of the information contained in MedsPaL, according to the MPP website.
The MPP has several collaborative agreements with national and regional patent offices to share patent data for MedsPaL, its Medicines Patents and Licences Database. The agreements with the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and the European Patent Office facilitate the automatic update of some of the information contained in MedsPaL.
Meeting of Iberian IP Office Heads
Also yesterday, a group of senior officials from Iberian and Latin American countries, met to discuss broad topics such as patent information, modernisation of IP offices, enforcement of IP rights, and strategic alliances.
The Programa Iberoamericano de Propiedad Industrial (IBEPI) is a collaboration between Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Paraguay, Perú, Portugal, Dominican Republic, Spain, and Uruguay.
According to Luiz Pimentel, president of the Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property, IBEPI seeks to stimulate trade between its members, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises, and publicises the benefits of IP protection. It is not a work-sharing initiative between those IP offices, he told Intellectual Property Watch.
The heads of IP offices were meeting in the margin of the WIPO General Assembly, taking place from 24 September to 2 October.
Image Credits: Catherine Saez