CWS.ATR.PI.2012.BR

Annual Technical Report 2012 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Brazil (CWS/ATR/PI/2012/BR)

Where URLs are requested below, it is preferred that either URLs which are likely to remain stable over time (three years or more) are provided, or home (main) page URLs are provided with a short explanation of how to access the corresponding information.

The term "patent" covers utility models and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs). Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in their Annual Technical Reports on Industrial Design Information Activities.

I. Evolution of patent activities

Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants with respect to the previous year

Applications for BR patents and PCT national phase entrance increased from 31.897 in 2011 to 33.780 in 2012 (+6 %).
Patents granted decreased from 3.806 in 2011 to 3.137 in 2012 (-17 %).

Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year

From April 17, 2012, the Brazilian Patent Office - INPI - began its Green Patents Pilot Program. In the first phase, about 70 applicants confirmed their inclusion at the program. They occupied 21 places on the 500 "seats" offered to the society. From this, three patents were granted at record time - 9 months from the entrance into the program

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to patents

Statistics related to Brazilian patent applications are available at http://www.inpi.gov.br/portal/artigo/estatisticas and the statistics of electronic filling are available at https://edeposito.inpi.gov.br/painel/

Additional information relating to 2012 INPI’s statistics are available at:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/images/docs/relatorio_anual_2012.pdf

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information

Publishing, printing, copying (main types of publications of the Office in the field of patent information, etc.)

(1) Paper Patent Documents
The collection comprises approximately 800.000 Brazilian documents, from 1924 to 2010, not available for searches
(2) Publishing
Published patent application documents are prepared by the Center for the Dissemination of Technological Information (CEDIN), a division of the Directorate of Cooperation for Development (DICOD) that is responsible for maintaining and disseminating the patent information. With respect to granted patents, the Directorate of Patents (DIRPA) is responsible for digitizing them.
Patent of Invention application documents are published with a letter code "A", Patent of Utility Models are published with a letter code "U" and the Addition Certificates are published with a letter code "E". Kind codes "B1", "Y1" and "F1" refers to, respectively, granted Patents of Invention, Patents of Utility Models and Addition Certificates. All documents are published in the INPI's official gazette.

(3) Industrial Property Gazette
Since April 2005, official notices and selected bibliographic data relating to BR patent applications and granted patents are published in the official weekly electronic Brazilian Official Gazette (Revista da Propriedade Industrial - RPI). Official gazettes are available on the Brazilian Patent Office website in PDF and TXT format, at http://revistas.inpi.gov.br/rpi/, and all published officials gazettes are stored in the library available to the public.

(4) Internet
Bibliographic data of Brazilian patents are available for consultation at an internal database (SINPI) and at internet (www.inpi.gov.br). Keyword searches in titles or abstracts are available only in Portuguese. Brazilian patent documents' first pages contain bibliographic data, according to WIPO standards.
INPI sends to the European Patent Office the bibliographic data and electronic copies of the whole patent applications and granted patents, as soon as the domestic publication occurs, to be part of EPOQUE system and of the searchable websites at Espacenet database (worldwide.espacenet.com) and Latipat database (lp.espacenet.com). In 2012, 310.375 pages of patent documents were digitized and sent to EPO.
Brazilian documents are also sent to WIPO's Patentscope database.

Since 2011 the Directorate of Patents (DIRPA) is publishing the intermediate patent documents such as examination and search reports and granted patents at the internet by the e-patents platform. The real-time access to the full content of patent documents is also under development by the e-patents platform.

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of patent information

INPI's website (www.inpi.gov.br) plays an increasingly important part in the dissemination of notices regarding to patents, as well as informing the public and the community of users all the information concerning training activities, events and legal information concerning intellectual property.

Besides, the official gazette weekly provides users with the information concerning INPI's decisions on patent matters. More information about an application which appears in the gazette is available on-line, such as its search/technical report and/or the final document of a granted patent.

Mass storage media used (paper, microforms, optical storage, etc.)

INPI has a collection of DVD and CD-ROM containing published or granted US, Benelux, WO, EP, DE, ES, FR, JP, KR,OA CH, GB and TR patent documents, and paper copies of entire documents can be provided for internal or external demands.

Brazilian Office has also a paper collection of BR, US, WO, EP, AU, CA, NL, DE, CH, GB and FR patent documents classified according to the IPC and a microform patent document collection from BR, ES, US, FR, GB, DE and CH. This collection has been frozen since the implementation of search systems. Internal users access CD-ROM, DVD, Epoque, Dialog, Internet and SINPI (internal database), whereas external users access CD-ROM, DVD and Internet.

Word processing and office automation

INPI has Microsoft Windows XP and 7, Microsoft Office and BrOffice open source softwares, available to all staff.

(New) techniques used for the generation of patent information (printing, recording, photocomposing, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), etc.)

Through an agreement with WIPO, all the electronically available Brazilian patent applications are being OCRed.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online publication of patent documents and gazettes, and to other primary and secondary sources of patent information, including patent publication servers and download of bulk patent data

INPI's website provides online access to the patent applications and granted patents. Patent gazettes can be accessed at: http://revistas.inpi.gov.br/rpi/.
Brazilian patents database is available through Internet at :
http://pesquisa.inpi.gov.br/MarcaPatente/jsp/servimg/servimg.jsp?BasePesquisa=Patentes

Search and technical reports are found at: http://eparecer.inpi.gov.br.

Granted patents are found at: http://ecarta.inpi.gov.br

All data and documents related to an application from 2011 are found at: http://evista.inpi.gov.br

III. Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents

Abstracting, reviewing, translating

No service of translation, abstracting and reviewing is conducted by INPI

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), and reclassification³ activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC), other classification (please indicate whether or not patent documents are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)

Patent applications are classified into the latest edition of the International Patent Classification.

INPI preclassifies an application by allotting an administrative unit, i.e. a technical area, using automated means (neural network algorithm). All administrative units are automatically ranked for every application and the application is then routed to the first technical area ranked. If this first choice is incorrect, the application can be rerouted to another unit, usually the second one ranked.

Classifying a document for the first time is done by examiners using the IPC in Portuguese/English during the secrecy period of patent applications.

In 2013 the INPI plans to start classifying the Brazilian patent documents also in the CPC (Cooperative Patent Classification).

Reclassification is done by a tool developed in-house, called IPC Reclass. It is an environment where all documents that need to be reclassified are shown and where examiners can do the task. This tool is also used by other Offices, such as MX and CA.

Coordinate indexing (domestic deep indexing systems, keyword indexing)

Information not available

Hybrid system indexing

Information not available

Bibliographic data and full-text processing

Bibliographic data processing is used for search using the internal system (SINPI) and through Internet (http://pesquisa.inpi.gov.br/MarcaPatente/jsp/servimg/servimg.jsp?BasePesquisa=Patentes).

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

File building

Since 2012 the Brazilian patent documents are available only in electronic form, and updated weekly

Updating

Administrative staff carries out updating of search files centrally

Updating

Administrative staff carries out updating of search files centrally

Storage, including mass storage media

See below the item: Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), data carriers used

Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file

Paper collection contains US, WO, EP, AU, CA, NL, DE, CH, GB and FR patent documents.

CD-ROM and DVD collection contains US, WO, EP, DE, ES, FR, JP, OA CH, GB and TR patent documents.

Either paper or digital documents are available through search tools, for internal patent examiners and external users.

V. Activities in the field of computerized and other mechanized search systems

In-house systems (online/offline)

The SINPI database (Integrated System of Industrial Property) is the in-house system available for searching. Technical searching can be carried out using the IPC code or indexing terms, combinations of terms from the same or different headings for searching patent documents, legal status or other parameters. Brazilian patent applications database is available through Internet at http://pesquisa.inpi.gov.br/MarcaPatente/jsp/servimg/servimg.jsp?BasePesquisa=Patentes.

In the SISCAP system (System of registration of the production) the examiners can search in all examination and search reports published.

External databases

INPI patent examiners have access to EPOQUE and commercial databases on patents and technical literature through WPI, DIALOG as well as general databases available over the Internet. With regards to non-patent literature, INPI has an agreement with CAPES (promotion agency for research in Brazil that acts in the expansion and consolidation of post-graduate studies). In this agreement the INPI examiners have access to the following databases: ACS - American Chemical Society, AAAS - Science Magazine, Cambridge University Press, Gale, JSTOR, Nature, Sage, Science Direct, Springer and Scopus.

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

Register, legal status and administrative support information are stored on the SINPI database.

Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used

Data Processing by HP Blade Servers:16 Blades
Two processors Intel Xeon Quad-core 2.83 Ghz; 32GB RAM;
120 virtual servers

Data Storage IBM and HITACHI: 33.6TB
80TB to be implemented

Internet: Current link: 68Mps;
14 branch offices connected to the Regional Data Center in Rio de Janeiro;
Wireless Internet :
100 access points, ensuring that all floors have Internet access via wireless network;
1700 network users
Workstations with Windows XP migrating to Windows 7;
BR Office / Microsoft Office 2010;
Interconnection between 3 buildings in Rio de Janeiro
Local Network Area (LAN):1Gbps.

The PCs used for all patent examiners and staff information are Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz. Computers with two 22" monitors and DVD drivers.

Existing online thesauri; their structure, presentation and usefulness for computerized searches

INPI does not use online thesauri.

VI. Administration of the industrial property office library, and information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, for assisting clients on searching procedures, for obtaining official publications and registry extracts)

Planning, administration, automation, security, buildings

INPI has an internal library that is conducted by the Center for the Dissemination of Technological Information (CEDIN). The library collection contains technical books, pamphlets, manuals, legal reports, name and subject-matter indexing books, periodicals and official gazettes from many different countries. The collection is located in the office's main building, and the consultation can be done via intranet (INPI staff) or locally (INPI staff and external users).

Collecting, acquisitions, preparation

All INPI staff is free to suggest additional material for inclusion in the library collection, and the administrative manager periodically asks for suggestions.

In 2012 the library staff received approximately 2.034 requests from researchers, 308 specialized non-patent documentation searches and 6.741 copies of articles or technical information demanded by the internal and external researchers. The library was updated with 991 new books, pamphlets, journals, thesis, etc.

The INPI library electronic catalog became available on the Institutional website, providing access to more than 10,000 references to the general public.

The library published 6 Bibliographic Alerts that list new publications available in its collection and it helps to disseminate matters concerned to Intellectual Property and Innovation. The Bibliographic Alerts are available through INPI intranet.

The library's users also have access to 58 electronic databases, representing more than 10,000 journals, reference works, thesis and others publications of all knowledge fields, specially technology and Intellectual Property and innovation. These databases are relevant tools for institutional purposes, mainly concerning the ISA/IPEA searches and the Intellectual Property and Innovation Master and Doctorate Program.

All users can access the library's databases and others information resources in the Reading Room.

Collection management, preservation

The Center for the Dissemination of Technological Information (CEDIN) is in charge of maintaining the library.

Interlibrary lending, resource sharing, networks of patent libraries in the country

The library provides external services to customers, as technical searches in non-patent literature and copies of INPI studies and other authorized publications. It also has a close contact with other specialized libraries from all over Brazil and abroad. The library's services can be required through the e-mail biblioteca@inpi.gov.br.

The INPI library joins the COMUT - "Programa de Comutação Bibliográfica" - from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) and Ministry of Education (MEC) - that provides exchange of copies of technical and scientific literature from 1,600 Brazilian libraries. Through the program, by the payment of a minimum price, it may request copies of scientific papers which are located on any of the participating libraries. The sending of publications can be done through postal or electronic means.

As a member of "Rede SophiA" (a Brazilian network of libraries) INPI library may share its electronic catalog, as well as provide an interlibrary lending with more than 200 libraries.

In the course of its activities, the library become a regional reference status for graduate courses in Library Science from the University of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO and from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ, and has received groups interested in its cataloguing, its collection and specialized services designed to INPI.

It also were offered professional trainnings for librarians, specially concerning the information resources (patent and non-patent databases) and cataloging services, in the field of Intellectual Property and Innovation.

In 2012, the INPI library became a WIPO Depository Library, serving as a national reference for the general public wishing to consult WIPO publications. In this sense, all publications received have been cataloged in the electronic bibliographic database and placed for consultation in the Reading Room.

Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and patent information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)

The Patent Office's Search and Advisory Service continues to promote its activities in providing priced patent investigations. In 2012, 380 patent searches were processed.

INPI has developed a service (Central Enquiry Unit) to provide answers to customers' doubts, available at INPI's homepage : (http://faleconosco.inpi.gov.br/faleconosco/).

INPI sends to the European Patent Office the bibliographic data and electronic copies of the whole patent applications and granted patents, as soon as the domestic publication occurs, to be part of the searchable website at Espacenet and Latipat.

Information about a patent application can be found at: http://eparecer.inpi.gov.br for search and technical report, at: http://ecarta.inpi.gov.br for letter patents and, still for just a selected group, at: http://evista.inpi.gov.br for all data and documents related to an application.

The Brazilian Patent Office has active bilateral cooperation programs with different countries, including a number of developing countries.

In 2012 the Search and Advisory Service carried out 1 free patent search with WIPO to Uruguay under the Program of Patent Information Services for Developing Countries, and 15 free patent searches to Paraguay under a bilateral cooperation.

URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of patent applications

http://www.inpi.gov.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60&Itemid=96

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and grant procedures related to patents; opposition and appeal procedures related to patents; etc.

Information available at:http://www.inpi.gov.br/portal/artigo/guia_basico_patentes

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., patent search service(s) and patent databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them

Patent search services and Patent databases:
http://pesquisa.inpi.gov.br/MarcaPatente/jsp/servimg/servimg.jsp?BasePesquisa=Patentes

PCT application guide:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=116&Itemid=141

e-Carta Patente (electronic platform for granted patents):
http://www.inpi.gov.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=99

E-Patent Examination Report:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=99

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information

International or regional cooperation in the exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., bibliographic data, abstract and/or full text information

INPI makes use of all relevant WIPO standards. In 2012, 9.312 published Brazilian patent applications were sent to foreign patent offices in a cooperation exchange.
From 2012 onwards, INPI has abandoned the patent and/or industrial designs applications sending on paper. The office has started to provide patent documents in electronic format for all countries with which it has cooperation agreements.

Medium used for exchange of priority documents

The medium used in 2012 was electronic data.

Medium allowed for filing applications

In 2012 patent applications are accepted only on paper form.
An online system for electronic filing of patent applications is been developed to be implemented in march 2013.

VIII. Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)

Training courses for national and foreign participants, use of audiovisual means

INPI has promoted an extensive training program, including seminars and courses, aiming to prepare students, managers and technicians staff in different aspects of intellectual property.

By the end of 2012, INPI trained 2705 students, with courses for technological managers (basic, intermediate and advanced levels); workshops of intellectual property; customizing courses; visiting of undergraduate students; distance learning DL 101 BR.
INPI's students are mainly civil servants of different Federal and State organs; staff of enterprises; managers and technicians of Transfer and Technology Offices from Universities, Institutions of Research and Development; Graduate and undergraduate students and staff of organizations supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.

In 2012, the tutors designed by INPI and Brazilian Ministry of Culture were trained under an agreement between INPI and WIPO to use the platform of distance course promoted by WIPO. The management of the use of WIPO's platform has been responsible by the Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development Academy of INPI in partnership with WIPO. This course was customized from the course DL101P of WIPO to Brazilian regulations by tutors. In 2012 there were two editions of the DL101P BR and tutors supported those editions.

Assistance to developing countries (sending consultants and experts, receiving trainees from developing countries, etc.)

INPI delivers seminars and workshops and working meetings including developing countries. By the means of a WIPO-INPI Cooperation Agreement, six events about subjects and themes that concerns developing countries took place, which involved around 45 experts from developing countries.

A cooperation project among IP offices in the South American continent is growing in importance and can be access at: http://www.prosur.org.ar. Moreover, a tool named “epec” that stimulates collaboration among patent examiners in the continent has been created and has been perceived as an important tool that helps IP offices to deal with their backlog, available at: http://epec.inpi.gov.br

Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)

In 2012 INPI continued to promote its' presence at many exhibitions or seminars, and conducted visitors to the Office.

The Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development Academy of INPI organized the V Academic Meeting on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development (V ENAPID), lectures on Intellectual Property and seminars on Intellectual Property Issues.

The number of participants in all activities was 449, managed by Academy of INPI.The events organized by INPI, such as ENAPID and seminars on IP Issues, have constituted the locus to reflections on the issues of intellectual property, innovation and development, attracting the participation of representatives from government, the public and private sectors, the scientific and technological communities and the INPI staff.

Studies to identify trends in new technology, e.g., by the use of patent statistics and preparation of monographs

Programs and Studies Coordination (CEPRO), a coordination of the Center of Dissemination of Technological Information (CEDIN), is in charge of preparing programs and studies using bibliographic and technological information available in patent documents in order to provide statistical information to monitor the trends in patent activity.

In 2012, INPI published the following studies: "Patent Applications Technology Conversion and Storage Electrochemical Energy Using Nanotechnology (published applications between 2001 and 2010)"; "Nano-textiles: Analysis of patent applications in Brazil to study the R & D and Innovation" and "Global Scenario of Patenting in Nanobiotechnology 2000-2008" . All these published studies, including those from the previous years, are available at: http://www.inpi.gov.br/portal/artigo/publicacoes.

In 2012, INPI published 31 Technological Alerts consisting of a survey of technologies published worldwide on strategic issues of the Federal Government, including Bio-fuel, Stem Cells, Nanobiotechnology, Fuel Cells, Wind Energy, Solar Energy, Nuclear Energy, Nanotechnology, Technologies applied to the Hearing Impaired, Visually Impaired Related Technologies and Technology Related to Motor Disability. For each of these, there was a semiannual publication.
All published Technological Alerts are available in: http://www.inpi.gov.br/portal/artigo/alerta_tecnologico.

Assistance furnished by offices to facilitate the changing over of receiving offices to electronic data carriers for the exchange of patent documents (see also fourth sub-item of item VI, above)

INPI sends to the European Patent Office the bibliographic data and electronic copies of the whole patent applications and granted patents, as soon as the domestic publication occurs, to be part of the searchable website at Espacenet and Latipat.

IX. Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:

provide information on legislation related to patents

Information on legislation related to patents is available at http://www.inpi.gov.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110&Itemid=125.

contain the Annual Report of the Office

The 2012 Annual Report of INPI is available at:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/images/docs/relatorio_anual_2012.pdf

if necessary, provide further information related to the topics referred to in the current ATR

No further information releted to the current ATR

provide open source codes related to patent information systems

Information not available

contain patent-related news regarding the Office

Patent-related news regarding to the Office are available at
http://www.inpi.gov.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=50&Itemid=146.

Further information related to patents are available at:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/portal/artigo/guia_basico_patentes

X. Other relevant matters

After being accepted in 2007 as an International Searching Authority (ISA) and an International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA), INPI started to prepare all the administrative and technical procedures for the execution of this new task. Brazilian Patent Office began to act as ISA and IPEA in August, 2009.

In 2012, were filled 562 international applications in the RO/BR in which 425 (76%) have chosen Brazil as ISA. The IPEA/BR received 48 demands to Preliminary Examination. Currently, Brazil has been chosen for ISA/IPEA authority by following PCT country members: Angola, São Tomé and Principe, Guatemala, Panama e Colombia.

In 2012 INPI has continued with the Innovation and Intellectual Property Academy activities. The Professional Master Degree Course in Intellectual Property and Innovation is a multidisciplinary course approved by Brazilian Ministry of Education in 2006. It received students from different areas such as lawyers, engineers and managers. Ten students concluded the Professional Master's course in INPI in 2012.

The Brazilian Ministry of Education approved in 2012 the proposal of INPI related to the PhD Course in Intellectual Property and Innovation in 2012. INPI will begin the 1st edition of this course in the second semester of 2013.

Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and National Institute of Metrology (INMETRO) continued working in close collaboration, in order to establish the Brazilian Center of Biological Material (CBMB). The final objective of this project is not only to provide the necessary infrastructure for supplementation with the biological material of patent applications in biotechnology field, but also to contribute for the organization of services, which will allow the access of certified biological material for research and development, according to international requirements of traceability and safety. The Center is being built in Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro state, and its facilities were designed to accept the deposit of material of risk group levels 1 and 2, comprising bacteria, filamentous fungi, yeasts, animal cells and genetic material (e.g. plasmids).

In 2012 the Program of Automatic Supplying of Technological Information (PROFINT) gave support to 19 institutions. INPI sent to these institutions 39.678 front pages of patent documents in 2012. These documents are selected in the IPC fields that the institutions have chosen. INPI has a signed contract with each one of these institutions. In 2012 INPI continue to offer training activities to technical staff of the institutions associated to the Program in order to help them to select and analyze the information received.
The Observatory of Technologies (OBTEC) concentrated in 2012 its actions on the Implementation of the Sectorial Observatories: Health, Energy, and Biotechnology. The strategic themes for health, which have been selected and are being worked on in conjunction with Fiocruz are: cancer (prevention, diagnosis and treatment), diseases perpetuate poverty and access to genetic resources. In the Energy sector, OBTEC, in partnership with Embrapa conducted research on the technologies involved in the conversion of vegetable oils into fuels. A work related to aspects relating to patenting in biotechnology conducted by OBTEC in partnership with IPEA, was based on a survey of biotechnologies employed in health and deposited in the offices of Industrial Property of the United States, European Union, Japan, China, India and Brazil, to evaluate the impacts caused by filing patent and regulatory changes. Another activity OBTEC started in 2012 consists in mapping technologies on strategic issues for the FINEP in order to provide input to the analysis of projects submitted for funding.

Aditional information about 2012 INPI’s statistics are available at:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/images/docs/relatorio_anual_2012.pdf