Paranaguá, Pedro --- "Understanding the Brazilian patent reform" [2017] ELECD 819; in Matthews, Duncan; Zech, Herbert (eds), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and the Life Sciences" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 337

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and the Life Sciences

Editor(s): Matthews, Duncan; Zech, Herbert

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783479443

Section: Chapter 18

Section Title: Understanding the Brazilian patent reform

Author(s): Paranaguá, Pedro

Number of pages: 19

Abstract/Description:

Brazil has a disparity between the relatively high level of knowledge production, on the one hand, and a low level of patent application, on the other. Bearing that in mind, in 2011 Newton Lima Neto, PhD in chemical engineering, a former provost of a respected federal university in the countryside of Sao Paulo State, Brazil, and then a Congressman at the Brazilian Lower House, commissioned a report before the country’s Lower House aimed at finding out the reason for that disparity, and what could and should be done to tackle this issue.Two years’ later, after having consulted with more than thirty experts from industry, academia, government and civil society, and after holding seven conferences around the country at the Brazilian Patent Office, Lower House, University of Sao Paulo and elsewhere, the report concluded that the TRIPs Agreement may foster or hamper innovation, depending on how it is implemented in each specific country.