Why it is a mistake not to register your Patents in Brazil

Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world with a population of 206 million people. It is the country with the most developed infrastructure in Latin America. It also has a high level of consumer potential.

That could be enough reason to include Brazil among the countries where to register any single patent, especially for consumer and electronic products.

Right now, Brazil is facing an economic, politic and moral crisis of unprecedented proportion that brings instability to any foreign investment there. However, a decision not to invest or do business in Brazil will leave open to others a large potential market that is eager to maintain the consumption standards achieved in the last decade.

Brazilians travels a lot and are connected to any new trend in technology, fashion, treatments, etc.

Apart from that, Brazil has enough infrastructure, raw materials and brains to produce by itself whatever it is possible to be consumed internally.

Patent registration is a condition sine qua non for the exclusive right to exploit an invention or process during the validity term of the patent, which is 20 years from the filing date of the patent application.

The protection of a patent is territorial, meaning that to have it protected requires registration in each and every country where the patent owner intends to commercialize its patented technology. If no registration is made in certain country that means basically that the technology is free to be exploited in that country, although there are some exceptions to this rationale.

It is the responsibility of the patent owner to protect its rights. In the past, Brazil was accused of having a high level of piracy, but the Government got involved in order to minimize the bad trade effects of this fame. After 20 years of TRIPS implementation, Brazil has adequated its laws and judicial system to international standards of protection of intellectual property rights.

Registering a patent in several countries may cost a lot, so a careful analysis of where to register is important and only the patent owner may truly be able to identify the sensitive countries. However, the cost for registering should not thought of as problem, but as a means to secure the lawful monopoly and exclusivity rights that registration guarantees. No exception should be made to this rule. If a patent (or a trademark) is not registered in certain territorial jurisdiction, the government of that jurisdiction cannot be blamed for not protecting that intellectual property. Only the owner of intellectual property is to blame for the faulty design of its global protection strategy.

So, patent registration in Brazil should always be considered, even in the absence of an immediate plan to do business there.