by Ana Lucia de Sousa Borda
August 03, 2021
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If it was already clear even to people who are not specialists in the field that intellectual property had been gaining increasing prominence in the most diverse sectors of society, this has become even more evident amidst the consequences of the most recent transformations that are affecting everyone’s lives on a global scale.
Intellectual property protects a wide variety of intangible assets, from those that contain the solution to a technical problem, the most recent and emblematic of which is the development of vaccines and tests in a true race against time, through creations of the mind, distinctive signs to designate the most different goods and services, and products with differentiated and often even unique characteristics, as a result of the geographical environment where they are produced.
These last assets will be the focus of this article. Geographical indications have been protected for a long time in Brazil by virtue of international treaties and, also, in line with its domestic legislation, in order to better serve assets that reflect our identity, which is multifaceted due to different regional, climatic, social and cultural aspects.
Domestically, the Industrial Property Law (IPL – Law no. 9,279/96), together with Normative Ruling no. 95, of 28 December 2018 of the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office – BPTO [National Institute of Industrial Property – INPI], as well as other provisions contained on the Office’s Portal, deal with the registration of Geographical Indications and constitute legal landmarks of great importance for the subject matter. As a result, 84 Brazilian geographical indications have been recognised thus far. More recently, the Office has adopted the Geographical Indications Manual, thus expanding the dialogue with users.
In yet another initiative, the BPTO has recently made a new page available on its website, where technical files with information on Brazilian geographical indications can be accessed. These files contain a summary of the main information for each recognised geographical indication. Among the information now available for access are the Technical Specifications, which is a document that guides the geographical indication. Written by the collective of producers, the Specifications must realistically reflect the characteristics of the geographical indication without, however, establishing parameters that are too rigid, to the point of making it difficult to implement by the group of producers.
The technical files are grouped by region and in alphabetical order, so they can be navigated extremely easily, and the relevant information about the geographical indication is grouped objectively, including the control structure, the product’s specifications and characteristics, the geographical area, its location and also a brief history reporting the advent of the product and how it became known, in the case of indications of origin. As for appellations of origin, the relationship between the product’s characteristics and the geographical area, including a designation of the natural factors (climate, soil type, etc.) and human factors (traditional management passed from generation to generation, techniques developed over time), needs to be demonstrated.
Thus, an important source of consultation emerged, not only for scholars of the subject, but also for those producers who are in the process of preparing their geographical indications. It can also be useful for those who are considering changing their geographical indications, which is now allowed after the entry into force of the Geographical Indications Manual. Hence, experiences and knowledge are shared in order to allow an improvement for the benefit of all involved. Of course, all of this has the potential to increase the visibility of geographical indications as a tool for the development of an intangible asset for a huge variety of production chains.
As an example, the technical file for the appellation of origin “Andirá-Maraú Indigenous Land” was consulted, related to Waraná (native guarana) and waraná bread (guarana sticks). The description of the product’s relationship with the geographical area leaves no doubt as to the specificity of the guarana cultivated in that region. Starting with the soils of anthropic origin, originating from indigenous settlements and which suffered influences resulting from the handling of charcoal, ashes, animal bones and other remains from kitchens and houses. Such soils afford improved growth, productivity and quality of the guarana and are combined with seedlings obtained from the “mothers of guarana”, which grow in the highlands of Andirá-Maraú. The caffeine content of guarana seeds is a direct result of anthropic soils. The high environmental humidity is of fundamental importance for the survival of the “canudo” [straw] bees, which in turn are the pollinating agent of the native guarana plants. In addition to being excellent honey producers, canudo bees also act as an environmental marker, pointing out wetter microclimatic conditions, which influence the smoking process of waraná bread. In summary, products from this appellation of origin have an undeniable differential, in which the necessary and, in this case, exotic natural and human factors are in perfect harmony.
Therefore, in addition to being a development tool, geographical indications can represent the appreciation of ancestral cultures and techniques, which could otherwise be lost in time.
Thanks to the technical files, all this wealth of information is now easily available for consultation in yet another way of valuing and disseminating geographical indications as an intellectual property asset.