NEWS JANUARY 2021 - DECEMBER 2021
ARGENTINA
November 24, 2021
The use of Cannabidiol (CBD) for cosmetics, personal hygiene products and perfumes has recently been authorized by the Argentine National Administration of Medicines, Food and Technology (ANMAT) through Regulation No 8504/2021. This regulation was published in the Official Gazette on November 16 th 2021, being effective as of November 17th 2021.
The ANMAT authorizes the registration of cosmetic products, personal hygiene products and perfumes containing CBD of natural origin or CBD present in extracts and natural oils of certain parts of the Cannabis sativa L. plant with no more than 0.2% W / W THC.
In order to obtain authorization for these products, Regulation No 8504/2021 establishes the obligation to submit documentation referring to the ingredients allowed with CBD of natural origin with no more than 0.2% P / P of THC, in addition to the information and documents requested for obtaining authorization for regular cosmetic products, products for personal hygiene and perfumes.
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BRAZIL
November 16, 2021
The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office, published on November 3rd 2021, in the Official Bulletin No. 2652, Technical Opinion #43/2021, regarding the interpretation of the provisions of Article 129 § 1º of the Intellectual Property Law (Law nº 9.279/16).
Article 129 of the IP Law establishes the right of precedence in registration and specifically states that “Ownership of a trademark shall be acquired by means of a registration validly issued in conformity with the provisions of this Law, and its exclusive use shall be assured to the owner…” and its paragraph 1 states that “Any person who, in good faith, on the priority date or the filing date of the application, had been using for at least six months in Brazil an identical or similar mark to distinguish or certify identical, similar or related products or services, shall enjoy a right of precedence in registration.”
Technical Opinion #43/2021 was prompted by a consultation proposed by the General Coordination of Appeals and Cases of Nullity Administrative Procedures (CGREC) regarding the possibility of admitting, in the administrative nullity instance, a claim alleging the right of precedence based on the provisions of Article 129, paragraph 1.
Even if this issue had already been examined by the Attorney General's Office and an interpretation had been established that the claim of precedence could exclusively be accepted in oppositions filed against third parties’ applications and could not be claimed through the filing of administrative nullity proceedings against third parties’ registrations, due to the recent decisions of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), admitting the invocation of the right of precedence, even after the granting of a trademark registration, it has been concluded that, the right of precedence may be challenged administratively constituting grounds for the filing of an administrative nullity proceeding, as established in Article 168 of the Law.
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BRAZIL
August 31, 2021
The prior consent for pharmaceutical products or processes patents in Brazil was provided by article 229-C of the Brazilian IP Law (Law # 9,279/1996) and has always been a cause of intense debate regarding the double analysis on patentability requirements and also for the delay caused to the substantive examination of the Brazilian PTO.
However, the mentioned article was recently revoked by Law #14.195/2021, which was approved by Brazil’s President and published in the Official Gazette, on August 27, 2021.
By means of Joint Ordinance #1/2017, the attributions of each counterpart were established, stating ANVISA’s would analyze whether a subject matter of a patent application represents a risk to public health, such risk characterized as pharma product comprising, or pharma process resulting in a substance whose use is prohibited in Brazil, such as narcotic substances, whereas the Brazilian PTO’s attribution is to analyze patentability requirements of the subject matter.
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BRAZIL
May 26, 2021
The Brazilian PTO published on the Official Bulletin No.2628, dated 18 May 2021, the first list of patents affected by the Supreme Court Decision (STF). Furthermore, the BRPTO also published a standard methodology to identify affected patents related to the pharmaceutical field. Such methodology includes the following:
• Patents sent to ANVISA (acronym in Portuguese for Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency) for prior approval, related to the article Art. 229-C of the Brazilian IP Law;
• Patents having at least one of the following International classifications: A61B, A61C, A61D, A61F, A61G, A61H, A61J, A61L, A61M, A61N, or H05G, (considered by WIPO as related to medical-technologies);
• Patents having at least one of the following IPCs: A61K/6, C12Q/1, G01N/33, G16H;
• Patents with published lawsuit decisions (specifically published under the code 19.1);
• Certificates of addition related to patents “for use in healthcare”, as mentioned by the Supreme Court decision.
Additional lists of patents affected by the STF decision will be provided in forthcoming BRPTO Bulletins. We will keep you informed
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BRAZIL
April 05, 2021
In an attempt to reduce the patent backlog, the Brazilian Patent Office (BRPTO) published in the Official Bulletin No. 2621 dated March 30, 2021, Ordinance 21/2021, which expands the preliminary examination procedures to encompass patent applications filed from January 01, 2017, to December 31, 2017.
This Ordinance applies to patent applications:
• not submitted to the first technical examination carried out by BRPTO;
• not subject to any type of priority examination by BRPTO;
• not containing third-party or ANVISA’s observations;
• having a corresponding application with prior art searches carried out by foreign Patent Offices and International or Regional Organizations;
• with a filing date up to December 31, 2017.
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EU
March 18, 2021
On March 10, 2021 the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA) of the European Patent Office has issued decision G 1/19 on computer-implemented simulations.
In summary, the EBoA concludes that the COMVIK approach is suitable for the assessment of computer-implemented simulations. In particular, a numerical simulation that is claimed as such may be patentable if an inventive step can be based on features contributing to the technical character of a claimed simulation method, even if said features are non-technical per se.
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USA-Mexico
March 03, 2021
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Mexican Institute of Intellectual Property (IMPI) recently announced the implementation of a new procedure of obtaining patents in Mexico, called “Parallel Patent Grant (PPG)”, which aims to facilitate the faster granting of patents in the country in those cases where the applicant holds at the same time a U.S. patent that corresponds to the Mexican application.
This initiative will result in the USPTO and IMPI implementing a system that will allow IMPI to use the search and examination results carried out by the USPTO when granting the equivalent patent in Mexico.
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