IP Delivers in Brazil
By Aaron Smethurst (Originally posted on the IP Delivers blog)
Since the launch of the IP Delivers campaign in July 2012, the GIPC has highlighted the many ways in which intellectual property promotes the rights of innovators around the world who are creating jobs, spurring economic growth, and delivering breakthrough solutions to global challenges. To bring this point home, we found different voices of IP from around the world who illustrate the ways IP delivers in their country every day.
Meet Jorge Avila.
As the President of the Brazilian National Industrial Property Office, Mr. Avila is naturally an advocate of strong intellectual property rights. But how, specifically, does IP create jobs and promote a stronger, more competitive Brazilian economy? In our interview with Mr. Avila, he describes how respect for the innovative process is integral to the growth of a variety of sectors in Brazil, from agriculture to biotechnology to tourism. In fact, Mr. Avila notes that intellectual property is “the only way for us to keep growing on the pace we need to grow in order to ban poverty from our country in order to give the Brazilians a better way of living.”
The proof is in the numbers. In the past year, Mr. Avila estimates that Brazil issued 8,000 patents and received over 35,000 applications. With the number applications filed increasing by ten percent each year, Brazil will soon be filing as many applications as the United States. An impressive feat for any country, Mr. Avila noted that:
“When it comes to innovation, we are newcomers. Newcomers will have no chance if they have to compete without any kind of protection. They need to protect [IP], in order to have a place in the market, to build partnerships with more traditional companies with much bigger, much more capitalized potential partners, which would pay no attention to these new start-ups, if they did not have an important IP quote for them.”
To view excerpts of the interview with Mr. Avila, or to view more voices of IP, visit the IP delivers website: www.ipdelivers.com.
