Brazil and Singapore sign memorandum of understanding on IP and launch educational guide for entrepreneurs

Brazil and Singapore sign memorandum of understanding on IP and launch educational guide for entrepreneurs

On October 23, the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO) and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) signed a memorandum of understanding in the area of intellectual property. According to the BPTO, the partnership aims to share information on the valuation of intellectual property assets and to generate opportunities for the internationalization of the INPI Academy. In addition, as part of the agreement, a series of 15 IPOS Business Guides will be published, translated into Portuguese and adapted to Brazilian particularities.

With this in mind, the first of the so-called Intellectual Property Management (IPM) business guides was launched in conjunction with the agreement and is called “Protecting your competitive advantage: What is intellectual property and how it can help your business grow”. With a focus on entrepreneurs, the document covers the basics of IP and how it can be used safely to develop business.

The first part of the guide provides an overview of how IP relates to the development of new ideas within a given company. Here, the guide explains that “once your idea has a defined form – such as a description, a drawing, an image, a trademark or any kind of composition – there is the possibility of protecting this concrete expression of your idea against imitators/counterfeiters”. The document also provides a step-by-step guide to obtaining IP rights and differentiates between the types of inventions protected by each IP right. Finally, the guide explains how to exploit the IP rights themselves, as well as how to use them as a basis for different business models and stages of company development.

The second chapter focuses on the specifics of which assets can be protected using each IP right: patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyrights and trade secrets. It also provides special types of protection for other innovations, such as cultivars and semiconductor designs (integrated circuit topographies), and for geographical origin, such as geographical indications. The next chapter differentiates each IP protection strategy according to the competitive advantage sought. In this section, the document also discusses the risks of infringing third-party IP rights and how to minimize them. As an example, it highlights the possibilities of licensing copyrighted works and trademarks.

The fourth chapter of the guide is concerned with explaining how the processes for registering intangible assets work, including the particularities of protection in the case of trademarks, patents, industrial designs, trade secrets and copyright. In chapter 5, the teaching material highlights issues related to market advertising, i.e. how to protect IP rights while improving the marketing of products and services in order, for example, to attract investment or arouse the interest of other companies in licensing. The document points out good practices for informing the general public about IP, as well as the risks associated with informing about rights that have not yet been granted. It also explains how a rights holder should proceed in the event of an infringement.

The INPI and IPOS guide can be accessed via the link: Protegendo sua vantagem competitiva

Note: For quick release, this English version is provided by automated translation without human review.