Intellectual Property in Brazil
Much of
the work done at Biokyra is related to the protection of intellectual property.
Intellectual property refers to patents, copyrights and trademarks that
can be bought or sold. The laws regulating them try to balance the interests of
creators who wish to gain greater control over their ideas and take advantage
of them, and the rest of society, calling for a greater flexibility of control.
A patent,
in its classic formulation, is a public concession,
granted by the State, which grants the holder the exclusive right to commercially
exploit his creation. However,
access is available to the public on the knowledge of the key points and the
claims that characterize the novelty in the invention. The exclusive rights granted by the
patent relate to the right to prevent others
from manufacturing, using, selling,
offering to sell or importing the said invention.
The
Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT was signed on June 19, 1970 in
Washington, in order to develop the patents and technology transfer systems.
The PCT provides basically a means of cooperation between industrialized and developing
countries. By October 2009 there were 142 countries signatories to the PCT.
The World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an intergovernmental organization
with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a specialized agency of the
United Nations Organizations, and is responsible for the PCT. The PCT aims to simplify
the necessary procedures in the case of a request
for patent protection in several countries,
making more effective and economic for both the user and for the government
agencies in charge of the patent system administration. Brazil is a signatory
to the PCT since 1978.
Biokyra
has its own team to write patent applications and to monitor the process of
obtaining intellectual property.
