Brazil starts 2022 with a fresh national IP strategy

On 8 December 2021, Presidential Decree 10.886 of 7 December 2021 instituting the National Intellectual Property Strategy (ENPI) was at last published in the Official Gazette.

The ENPI was created by the Intellectual Property Inter-Ministerial Group (GIPI), presided over by the Ministry of Economy, to contribute to the improvement of the Brazilian IP system and, more broadly, to further develop the national innovation ecosystem (for further background, see here).

The strategy is designed to last for 10 years (from 2021 to 2030) and contains 210 actions, which are organised into seven main strategic areas:  

• intellectual property for competition and development;
• IP dissemination, training and qualifications;
• governance and institutional strengthening;
• modernisation of the legal frameworks and non-statutory instruments;
• compliance and legal certainty;
• intelligence and perspectives for the future; and
• the integration of Brazil into the global IP system.

The first action plan for implementing and monitoring the ENPI was approved on 9 June 2021, that is, less than a year since the opening of the public consultation for comments and suggestions on the draft strategy. Despite not having been previously instituted by presidential decree, specific actions of the ENPI have been in practice since August 2021.

Now that the ENPI has been formally established, it will certainly not be confined to paper. On the contrary, it seems that the ENPI is now an official priority on both state and government agendas and will continue to grow with the support and contribution of entities from civil society, the federal government, states and municipalities.

In this regard, the GIPI can count on the support of 10 previously selected entities from civil society to assist with the implementation of its first action plan over the next 12 months. Successive implementation plans will be renewed every two years, with the next due to take place between 2023 and 2025.

The ENPI is part of a broader strategy, the National Strategy of Innovation, which was instituted by Presidential Decree 10.534 on 28 October 2020.