TECHNOLOGICAL INFORMATION |
Presentation at the 19th Session of the PCIPI
The Brazilian Industrial Property Office Homepage
EDUARDO ASSUMPÇÃO
1.0 Introduction
Our main subject is the presentation of the Brazilian home page on industrial property along with some considerations about the use of new tools to promote the use of industrial property information. Firstly, let me introduce to you, very briefly, some basic aspects of the industrial property system in Brazil. This information may be of importance to frame the discussion on new vehicles to provide patent information.
1.1 The Legal System
The protection of industrial property was introduced in the country in the last century. Brazil was one of the eleven countries which signed the Paris Convention on 1883. The country has been, since then, present in discussions about matters concerning industrial property, with a special concern towards technological information.
Earlier this year, after a long process of negotiation in Congress, a new industrial property law was enacted. This law includes important issues thereby matching the Brazilian Industrial Property System with international patterns for protection of industrial property. Besides procedures improvements, the most important changes are:
In 1970, the National Industrial Property Institute, which Portuguese abbreviation is INPI, was created. The following year, a industrial property code was issued, entrusting INPI with new functions and tasks. INPI was made responsible for the implementation of legislation regarding industrial property. At that time, a special role was assigned to the office on the transfer of technology. Although the situation is no longer the same, the experience accumulated in that field is considered valuable when dissemination of technical information is considered.
Shortly after the office was created, an extensive training and modernization process was initiated with the assistance of UNDP and WIPO, during which a core of skilled patent examiners was formed and a Center for Documentation and Technological Information was established.
We are subordinate to the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism but benefit from a certain administrative and budgetary autonomy. This freedom allows us to set up investment plans, to define the kind and amount of hardware or software needed as well as the hiring of required personnel for development and implementation of systems.
This is a point to be emphasized: all expenditures are covered by internal receipts derived from patent and trademark fees. This is a direct result of the modernization process previously mentioned which guaranteed that the money spent on the protection of patents and trademarks will revert to the system's benefit instead of being scattered into the Government's general budget. If we are to play a role on the promotion of IP information, it is essential to rely on adequate financial resources.
For two years now, in spite of frequent political changes, the Brazilian office has managed to keep track of its computerization process. Due to a complex legislation, though, the process of buying products or services is vulnerable to halts and delays. In the past, agreements were signed with international agencies not only to overcome bureaucratic difficulties but mainly to benefit from their international expertise. So, we are looking forward to establishing a new agreement with WIPO covering automation aspects.
INPI's main building is located in Rio de Janeiro. Six regional branches are established in major Brazilian cities. Currently it has, in round numbers, 610 employees, 150 work in the Patent Department (105 with university degrees) and 50 in the Center of Documentation and Technological Information - CEDIN (15 with university degrees).
With reference to its volume of work, INPI is the largest industrial property office in Latin America, one of the biggest as far as developing countries are concerned. We've been receiving 65,000 trademarks applications annually. In 1995, 14,000 applications were filed for patents (national applications plus PCT entered into national phase), including utility models. It must be noted that extensive technical examination is done by consulting an international patent document collection which includes CD-ROM series.
Besides its volume of work, the national extension challenges the system to be truly national, in a sense that connections must be provided through a large web. Nearly 50% of all the patent and trademark applications and other transactions are filed at the São Paulo branch which is 400 kilometers from Rio. Even more, there are customers located one thousand kilometers far from our nearest branch.
Thus the task of making information available through the Internet or simply providing some kind of e-mail service will enhance the degree of integration in a very cost effective way. Another by-product of considerable importance is the feedback furnished by clients. Scrutinizing their doubts is a way of checking out eventual inefficiencies in the system.
2.0 Information Policy
The point to be stressed here is the very special attention given to the building of a national documentation center. The positive impact the use of patent information produces over economic sectors was never neglected. Several programs stemmed from that perception. These programs, in fact, embody an active policy, which is not waiting for possible clients to arrive at our files, but applying an effort to get this information (or the relevant pieces of it) where it is needed.
With this approach in mind, we think the concept of distortion in the market of technological information should not be applied to the patent system. In fact, it is our duty to provide the necessary information for the benefit of society. The patent system itself has been established to balance the concession of exclusive rights, on the one hand, and the disclosure of inventions on the other.
Anyone who has performed searches on paper files knows how difficult, even unhealthy, this task can prove to be. It is time, then, to take full advantage of technological trends that can change today's manual, boring procedures into more pleasant and efficient ones, at amazing speeds. This is even more important for developing countries, where a whole universe of people and firms could benefit greatly from the patent system.
3.0 The Home Page
These policy directions help to explain why the Brazilian home page was launched as early as the beginning of 1994. It derived, in essence, from the Documentation Center's effort as a result of its previously mentioned tradition on the promotion of IP information. Back then, we lacked even the most essential resources of automation. The natural choice was to make the page available through an agreement with an external institution, a well known Brazilian foundation, named Andre Tosello.
This foundation, primarily concerned with biotechnology, offered its site to host our information pages. They had developed one software, written in sun pascal, to perform searches on key words. After some developments the software was able to be used on patent searches.
Basically, the Brazilian home page provides two groups of information. First, information of general use to clients and potential clients. In this category, we can include information such as the new IP law's text, proceedings on how to get a patent or a trademark, activities and programs targeted on the use of patent information and so on. As we browse through a dozen or so IP home pages on the Internet we can see a general trend in this direction.
Generally speaking, most offices provide extensive information, attractively packaged. The same could hardly be said about our home page. Although our provider has granted us continuous help, our pioneer effort has been impacted by external circumstances which have made it difficult to keep the page updated and complete. A new home page, more comprehensive, has already been developed but we still lack some resources to make it available. Yet, this deficiency will help prove an important point to which I will return to later.
The second category is the using of Internet to provide information on a limited patent database. Searches can be performed in several ways (transparencies). The database consists exclusively of Brazilian applications filed after August-1992. It comprises of forty thousand documents, granted patents as well as abandoned or refused applications.
The information made available includes not only bibliographic data but also abstracts in Portuguese. It is currently supplied free of charge. This situation is under review but a policy of price has not yet been established.
The database contains interesting statistics. I would like to mention a few. The average number of requests has been 11 thousand monthly, that means 380 requests per hour. Broken down by the nature of request, we observe two thirds of the total are directed to searches on the database. I will also return to this point for the conclusion.
Concerning e-mail services, which are included with home page, there have been lots of questions on future plans to make trademark information available on the Internet. In our case, a national trademark database has been available to the public for more than 15 years. The access is provided by another public institution. There is a charge for this information, it is not fee free. Currently, the trademark database generates gross receipts of US$ 1,5 million yearly. So there is tested commercial value in it. For the near future, there are no plans to include this information on the Internet. The plan, under implementation, is to replace the outdated external database by another one built in-house.
4.0 Conclusions
The implementation of our home page is just part of a more general policy aimed at strengthening the links between the IP system and the national economic environment. As far as the Brazilian experience goes, it was worth taking the chance to use Internet. We were surprised to see such a huge demand. In our case, the impact Internet has had is clearly shown since our page is not brand new. Although incomplete it is intensely sought after. Many people are getting in touch with IP system through it.
With reference to the scope of information, it clearly varies from country to country. Generally speaking, though, it is not controversial it should cover matters such as IP laws, regulations and procedures necessary to get a patent or a trademark. It should also include lists of fees, common questions, links to other related sites, training courses and so on.
A question, however, arises as to whether or not
to include searchable databases. In the Brazilian case, recent statistics
proves the database's usefulness. Most people want this information on
line. We are happy to meet these requirements, making available the technical
information contained in patent documentation.
retirado de http://www.inpi.gov.br/