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Tech Roundup: Patent delays deter innovation in Brazil

The main news about tech and innovation in Brazil. This week: patent delays, instant payments, real estate startups

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This week. WIPO claims Brazil still world’s slowest in granting patents. PIX completes first year of operations revolutionizing Brazil’s payment system. Startups also want in on Brazilian real estate boom.

WIPO: Brazil world champion in patent delays

Brazil is a country with huge potential for innovation and technology, yet in many areas the country still faces serious problems. According to the World Intellectual Property Indicators Report (WIPI), published this week by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Brazil remains the slowest in the world in granting patents, despite having made progress in the last year.

What happened. According to the report, in 2020 Brazil granted 86.4 percent more patents than in the previous year. The rate of increase was higher than in other emerging economies such as China (17.1 percent) and India (11.8 percent).

  • A large portion of the 20,407 patents registered in Brazil over the period was done by foreigners. The improvement in the country’s performance was second only to that of the Malaysian patent office, which saw a 99-percent growth in concessions.
  • Nevertheless, Brazil still leads in the time it takes to get a patent registered in the country, with a wait of 62.3 months on average (5.19 years).
  • Even with the number of pending applications having declined by 20.8 percent in the last year, Brazil still has the largest backlog among emerging economies, with 140,865 applications.
  • Moreover, the report noted that patent filings also fell 4.1 percent last year, to 24,338, while the global average saw growth of 1.6 percent.

Why it happened. Roberto Ribeiro, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property, told The Brazilian Report that the situation is due to the economic crisis of recent years and a lack of investment in research and development. 

  • “This disincentive has certainly led to a decline in interest on the part of investors to conduct research in Brazil or to register a patent here, because of doubts over the stability of our economic situation,” he explained. 
  • However, Mr. Ribeiro comments that the country is taking positive steps, such as the implementation of a National Institute of Industrial Property (Inpi) plan to combat the patents backlog as well as measures to reduce the bureaucracy involved in obtaining patents, a move that...

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