You Can’t Patent Our Fruits, Warns Brazil

Brazil is negotiating with the United States and the European Union the possibility of accepting a list of Brazilian products ineligible for patents.

The list, which the government’s Inter-Ministerial Intellectual Property Group (GIPI) has been preparing for around a year and a half, could benefit such products as some Amazonian fruits that are unfamiliar to foreigners.


According to the president of the National Industrial Property Institute (INPI), Roberto Jaguaribe, the international community is not compelled to recognize the list.


But many countries could sign on, since “one of the basic rules of trademarks is not to accept the name of a product as its brand name.”


Moreover, he explains that these countries are reluctant to contribute to something that, at bottom, “will dupe their own consumers.”


The list, for which no deadline has yet been set, should also be submitted to Japan, where two multinationals, Asahi Foods and Cupuaçu International, got as far as patenting the cupuaçu, an Amazon fruit.


The registry was cancelled last year by the Japanese Copyright and Patent Office, following a series of Brazilian legal suits.


The cupuaçu fruit was registered in Japan in 1998, but Brazil only got wind of the patent four years later, when a candy manufacturers’ cooperative was prohibited from exporting products derived from the fruit of this name to Germany.


ABr – www.radiobras.gov.br

Tags:

You May Also Like

Brazilian Bishop’s Hunger Strike in Defense of River Moves World to Action

After two years of frustrated attempts to establish a dialogue between social movements and ...

Brazil’s Silicon Valley Hosts Seminars on Technology and Innovation

Discussing new and sustainable forms of economic development will be one of the main ...

White Lie: Poverty in Brazil Has No Color

A little more than a century after the abolition of black slavery in the ...

Tourism Among Brazil’s Top Ten Earners

Up to September, foreign visitors to Brazil spent US$ 2.325 billion in the country, ...

‘Sons of the Jungle’ Vow Fight for Freedom in Brazil

The social movements that participated in the 4th Pan-Amazonian Social Forum (PASF), which took ...

Brazil Injects US$ 7 Billion in Economy to Prevent US Contagion

Brazilian monetary authorities eased rules on reserve requirements that banks must keep at the ...

124 People Hold 12% of Brazil’s Wealth. Half of Population Survives on US$ 4 a Day

Brazil’s 124 richest people hold assets totaling 544 billion reais equivalent to 238.6 billion ...

Brazil’s Inhumanity: Jean Charles Is a Hero, Victims of Brazilian Police Are Nobodies

Jean Charles de Menezes has been buried with all his fellow citizens and politicians’ ...

Disrobed Women, Alcohol, Floats. World’s Biggest Street Party Is on in Brazil

Brazil beauties with nothing for clothing but sequins led Carnaval parades lasting until dawn ...

Brazil: Farewell to a Cursed Poet

Although shunned for a time by publishers due to her erotic books, writer Hilda ...