Arquivos do Mês: September 2023

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After 12 years outside the list of the 50 most innovative economies in the world, Brazil gained five positions in the Global Innovation Index (IGI) compared to the 2022 ranking and now occupies 49th place among 132 countries, becoming first place From Latin America.

The data was released this Wednesday (27) when the 10th International Industry Innovation Congress opens.

Brazilian Climbing

According to the index data, Brazil is the most innovative economy in the region and is the leader in Latin America and the Caribbean, higher than countries such as Chile (52nd) and Mexico (58th).

Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States are on the podium of the most innovative economies.

Among the five oldest members of BRICS, Brazil is in third place, ahead of Russia (51st) and South Africa (59th). China is ranked 12th, while India is ranked 40th.

Indices that highlighted the evolution

The five positions achieved by Brazil in the 2023 ranking place the country among the economies that improved their performance in the IGI over the last four years.

Indicators such as online government services (14th position) and electronic participation (11th) are some of those responsible for raising Brazil’s position.

It is also worth highlighting the value of its 16 unicorns (22nd), representing 1.9% of the national GDP in 2023, and its intangible assets (31st), obtaining good results worldwide for its registered brands (13th) and the global value of its marks (39th).

Potential to be explored

Even with the gains in positions sustained for the third consecutive year, the Brazilian place is still considered below the country’s potential, which today has the 10th largest economy in the world. Brazil’s best position in the IGI was in 2011, reaching 47th.

For the president of the CNI, Robson Braga de Andrade, Brazil can grow each year in the ranking if there are investments and policies aimed at science, technology, and innovation (ST&I).

“Brazil’s position in the Global Innovation Index has improved recently. However, we have very untapped potential to improve our innovation ecosystem, achieve the goal of integrating the scientific and business sectors, and, consequently, promote greater innovation,” he says.

“We need modern and updated public policies, and, for this, the IGI has the fundamental role of helping to understand Brazil’s strengths and weaknesses,” adds Robson Andrade.

“CNI and MEI are aware of the importance of measuring innovation to enable effective policies, achieve solid results in ST&I activities, and promote social and economic development,” he concludes.

Space for eco-innovation

The theme of the International Industry Innovation Congress, which takes place between Wednesday and Thursday (28) in São Paulo, is eco-innovation. Research released this week by CNI reveals that almost half of Brazilian industries have projects or action plans on the topic.

Brazil plays a leading role in Latin America’s green technology race.

Green patent filings in Brazil have accounted for more than half of the total applications from the Latin American offices analyzed.

Brazil faces the historic opportunity to become a global green leader and has a higher share of green patents than the leading economies (16.1% in Brazil versus 14.9% in the USA, 14.3% in the E.U. and 15. 3% in China).

However, this difference has been falling in recent years.

For IGI organizers, Brazil needs to establish a culture of eco-innovation, which involves increasing companies’ propensity to take risks and strengthening government support for green innovation.

Waste management, energy conservation, alternative energy, and transportation offer promising innovative capabilities in the Brazilian industry.

Switzerland leads the IGI ranking

The top ten countries in the index are, in order:

• Switzerland;
• Sweden;
• U.S.;
• U.K.;
• Singapore;
• Finland;
• Netherlands;
• Germany;
• Denmark;
• South Korea.

The classification has been published annually since 2007 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO or WIPO) in partnership with the Portulans Institute and the support of international partners – in the case of Brazil, the CNI and Mobilização Empresarial for Innovation (MEI), partners in the production and dissemination of IGI since 2017.

Source: CNN

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UN says countries that don’t renounce vaccine intellectual property rights violate the convention against racial discrimination.

The United Nations Committee against Racism appealed on Thursday (31) for rich countries, notably the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, to renounce vaccine patents against COVID-19. According to the UN, countries that refuse to relinquish intellectual property rights violate a convention against racial discrimination.

Agreement to lift patents at the WTO

At a meeting held at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in June 2022, member countries had agreed in principle to authorize developing nations to suspend patents on vaccines against COVID-19 for five years.

According to the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a group of 18 experts, more efforts are needed to reduce inequality between nations.

“It is not enough to fight against the high rates of morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19 among the people and groups most exposed to racial discrimination around the world”, they said in a statement published with the support of the Special Rapporteur of the Nations on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Ashwini K.P.

Low vaccination in poorer countries

• According to the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO), 32% of the world’s population received at least one booster dose or additional dose of vaccine.
• But in some developing countries, that number is less than one percent.
• This is the case in Gabon, Papua New Guinea, Burundi, and Madagascar.
• However, negotiations on the subject were stalled, according to information from Medical Xpress.

UN charges rich countries

Rich countries’ “persistent refusal” to relinquish intellectual property rights “raises concerns” about their obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the UN committee added.

The document also points out that COVID-19 remains a severe public health problem, with “devastating” impacts that disproportionately affect people of African or Asian descent, ethnic minorities, Roma communities, and indigenous peoples.

Inequality could be “significantly mitigated” by sharing access to intellectual property rights for vaccines, treatments, and technologies “currently reserved by some countries in the global North,” concludes the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Source: Olhar Digital

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The BPTO informs that on August 31, 2023, Technical Note No. 01/2023 was published by the Permanent Committee for the Improvement of Procedures and Guidelines for Examination of Marks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (CPAPD), as provided for by art. 14 of INPI/PR Ordinance No. 491/19.

Source: BPTO

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A tool launched this month by OpenAI seeks to feed its artificial intelligence models. Other sites such as Amazon and Wikihow also denied access.

Several newspapers and media outlets from different countries have decided to block the webpage tracking tool used by OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which seeks to improve its artificial intelligence models.

The New York Times, CNN, Australian broadcaster ABC, and news agencies Reuters and Bloomberg blocked access to GPPTot, the webpage crawler launched on Aug. 8.

Other French media, such as France 24, RFI, Mediapart, Radio France, and TF1, followed suit.

“One thing that will not be tolerated is the unauthorized looting of content,” Radio France president Sibyle Veil said at a recent event.

The bot collects data on the internet

GPBTot’s mission is to collect all data and information from web pages to feed its generative artificial intelligence models.

However, the Californian startup, which made public how to prevent its robot from accessing a website’s data, is facing growing rejection from different publications.

According to Originality.ai, a tool that detects plagiarism, almost 10% of the most important pages in the world were denied access to GPBTot two weeks after its launch.

Amazon.com, Wikihow.com, Quora.com, and the Shutterstock image bank are among them. According to Originality.ai, if this pace is maintained, the proportion of sites prohibiting access to GPBTot will increase by 5% per week.

“There’s no reason why they should benefit from our content for nothing,” said Laurent Frisch, director of digital strategy and innovation at Radio France.

Copyright

Tools of the new generation of artificial intelligence (AI), capable of generating content from fragments of information, such as the ChatGPT text chat or the DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney image generators, have become very popular in the last year.

With a friendly interface, they are tools capable of creating content from simple user commands.

However, the companies responsible for these tools, such as OpenAI and Stability AI, are now facing demands from artists and content producers who allege these tools infringe on copyrights.

– Enough of us being looted by these companies that profit at the expense of our production – complained Vincent Fleury, digital director of France Medias Monde, holding company of France 24 and RFI.

Search for fair remuneration

Executives at some French media outlets also expressed concern that their content could be associated with false information. They call for open discussions on these topics with OpenAI and other AI companies.

– The media must be remunerated fairly. WeBertrand Gié, director of the News Division of the French newspaper Le Figaro, wants to obtain licensing and payment agreements.

The American news agency Associated Press (AP) signed an agreement with OpenAI in July, authorizing it to consult its archives since 1985 in exchange for access to the technology and AI expertise of the laboratory that created ChatGPT.

OpenAI has also pledged $5 million to the American Journalism Project, an organization supporting local news outlets, and an additional $5 million funding to help implement AI technologies.

A consortium of media outlets, including the AFP, Associated Press, and Gannett/USA Today, published an open letter in August urging leaders of AI companies to seek permission before using their text and images to generate content.

Source: O Globo

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With a significant number of 41 patents obtained in the area of recombinant vaccine development, diagnosis of veterinary diseases, and formulations with antiparasitic action, Sibele Borsuk, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Biotechnology at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), sees closer the transformation of years of studies into innovation, with the possibility of products resulting from these advances reaching the market. The researcher’s performance was recognized with the Futuro da Terra Award in the Innovation and Rural Technology category.

A member of UFPel’s Technological Innovation Committee (CIT) and the Internal Biosafety Commission (CIBio), she leads the institution’s infectious-parasitic biotechnology research group, contributing to advances in an area that still needs to evolve.

Sibele points out that, about recombinant vaccines or third-generation vaccines, there is greater availability of technologies for pets and horses, which are high-value-added animals. “In the niche of production animals (poultry, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle), there are few methodologies available on the market, and, in addition, to have widespread use for the prevention of these diseases in these production species, they need to have a low cost,” he comments.

Its activities have focused on the Development of vaccines and diagnosis of veterinary diseases, with emphasis on caseous lymphadenitis (a condition that affects sheep and goats), bovine neosporosis (one of the leading causes of abortion in sheep), and canine toxocariasis (zoonosis transmitted by parasites shed by dogs in the environment).

In projects related to caseous lymphadenitis, the researcher points out that the results are promising: the group has already tested different types of recombinant vaccines (such as DNA, subunit, and vectorized vaccines) with excellent results in preclinical trials (in mice).

“About 30 vaccine formulations have already been tested with efficacy rates ranging from 30% to 100%. She adds that the ones with the best performance are evaluated in the target species (sheep and goats)”.

Within this project’s scope, the group has 17 patent registrations with the Brazilian Patent Office (BPTO), one of which was granted this year. “For neosporosis, the most important results are for the diagnosis where we standardized a diagnostic method based on the fluorescence polarization technique. It was registered with the BPTO, and we had the patent filed”, she adds. Regarding toxocariasis, the project aims to diagnose different species (including canine and bovine, in addition to analyzing human contact with the T. canis parasite), resulting in two more registered patents.

In total, the projects led by the researcher account for 41 patents (innovation privilege) in the area of Development of recombinant vaccines, diagnosis of diseases of veterinary importance, and formulations with antiparasitic action — of these, the BPTO granted four.

Sibele comments that the most important is related to the production of recombinant vaccines for caseous lymphadenitis. “The BPTO takes around ten years to assess whether the patent has unprecedented technology,” she explains. Only after this evaluation the grant is made to the holder (the institution where the research was carried out and the inventors, including the researcher responsible for the study).

“We have not yet launched any product resulting from the granted patents on the market, but the granting of four patents issued by the BPTO is a crucial step, which qualifies the patent as an innovation, granting its holder the exclusivity of use, commercialization, and production of a certain technology in Brazil,” he explains. “The next step is the search for companies in diagnosing and producing vaccines,” concludes Sibele.

The researcher has been a Research Productivity Scholar in Biotechnology since 2014. She has been an advisor twice for theses and was awarded the Capes de Thesis Award in 2017. She has produced over 80 scientific articles in international journals and three books in recent years. She has already supervised 21 Scientific Initiation students with grants from development agencies, 15 masters, and 14 doctors.

Source: Jornal do Correio