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Federal Regional Court decides that the term “Botox” is a trademark and rejects the request to cancel the registration

After nine years awaiting a decision at the second instance and 14 years after the lawsuit was filed, the 11th Panel of the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region decided that the term “Botox” is a trademark and is not to be confused with the substance botulinum toxin. The discussion took place in Civil Appeal 0000616-76.2006.4.03.6100 / SP and the decision was unanimous.

The lawsuit was filed by the appellant Cristália Produtos Químicos Farmacêuticos LTDA against Allergan Inc and the Brazilian Patent Office (BPTO).

Cristália claimed that the word “Botox” is indicative of the chemical substance botulinum toxin and therefore it would not be subject to registration. Therefore, the appellant requested the annulment of the trademark registration, owned by Allergan.

The lawsuit was filed in 2006. In a judgment rendered in the first instance, the 19th Federal Civil Court of São Paulo dismissed the lawsuit, but Cristália appealed to the second instance and continued arguing that the registration was in disagreement with the trademark legislation, since the name in question derives from a substance widely used in neurological and aesthetic treatments, and it does not serve to distinguish only the product manufactured by the defendant according to Article 124, VI and XVIII, of Law 9.279 / 96, the Brazilian Industrial Property Law.

However, according to judge Nino Toldo, rapporteur of the case at TRF3, the BPTO’s act of granting the registration of the trademark was “perfectly valid”. The magistrate concluded that the term “Botox” presents the three elements provided for in art. 122 of Law No. 9,279 / 96, necessary to obtain protection and registration as a trademark: Distinctiveness – because it differentiates the product from the company Allergan from those manufactured by other laboratories, such as Botulift (Laboratório Bergamo) and Prosigne (Laboratório Cristália), among others; visually perceptible signs – captured by sight and not by other senses; and no legal prohibition – considering the fences listed in art. 124 of the Industrial Property Law.

Still, the judge understood that the generic character pointed out by Cristália was not characterized in the specific case, because the term “Botox” represents an evocative and suggestive mark of its main component, the botulinum toxin.

“More specifically with regard to its generic character, it should be noted that the word ‘Botox’ is not used to describe the chemical substance itself, which is its main component, and there is no need to speak, therefore, of prohibiting its registration as a trademark. Such a word, by the way, is perfectly capable of individualizing a specific product, within its segment of operation ”, said the judge in his decision.

The vote of the rapporteur judge was followed by all magistrates who are members of the 11th Panel and, by unanimous decision, Cristália’s appeal was denied, the decision of the lower court being upheld.

News from: JOTA
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The US orders Chinese consulate to close based on defense of intellectual property

The Chinese consulate in Houston, in the United States, was closed “to protect American intellectual property and private information from Americans” – a State Department spokeswoman said on Wednesday (7/22) after a vigorous protest. Beijing is against that decision.

“Vienna Convention states that state diplomats must ‘respect the laws and rules of the host country’ and ‘have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that state,'” said spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, during a visit by the American Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to Copenhagen.

“We have ordered the closure of the People’s Republic of China consulate in Houston to protect American intellectual property and the private information of citizens,” said the spokeswoman, after Pompeo’s arrival in Copenhagen for an official visit on Wednesday.

This decision is based on the growing tensions between the two countries on several fronts: the controversial national security law in Hong Kong, the espionage charges against China, or the humanitarian situation in the Xinjiang region (northwest China), where the Uighur Muslim minority lives.

“The United States will not tolerate any violation of our sovereignty, nor intimidation of our people by China, nor will we tolerate unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other behavior. President Trump insists on justice and reciprocity in our relations with China, “added the spokeswoman in a statement to the press.

China has five consulates in the United States. The consulate in Houston (Texas) was opened in 1979.

According to Houston newspapers, firefighters went to the Chinese consulate last night because documents were being burned in the building’s courtyard.

On Twitter, local police said smoke was visible, but law enforcement officials “were not allowed to enter” the building.

China reaction

Chinese officials denounced the decision, which they called “political provocation” that will undermine bilateral diplomatic relations.

“It is a political provocation (…) that seriously violates international law,” said a Chinese diplomacy spokesman, Wang Wenbin.

“China condemns this scandalous and unjustified decision,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, asking Washington to back down, otherwise Beijing will respond in an “appropriate” manner.

Chinese officials accused the United States of “slander” after two citizens of the Asian giant were indicted for cyberattacks on companies involved in the search for a vaccine against the new coronavirus.

The US Department of Justice announced yesterday the accusation against Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, “two Chinese hackers (who) worked with the Chinese Ministry of Security”.

Beijing refuted the charges.

“The Chinese government is a fervent advocate for cybersecurity and has always opposed cyber attacks,” added the spokesman, urging Washington to “end these slanders and defamations” against China.

According to US officials, the two hackers met during their engineering studies and stole thousands of dollars worth of industrial secrets over ten years.

Recently, they reportedly targeted California companies working on a vaccine and treatment for the new coronavirus, according to the federal prosecutor in charge of the case, William Hyslop.

Li and Dong were not arrested and would be in China today.

In this context of escalating tensions, China also warned its students in the United States, on Wednesday, about the risk of suffering “arbitrary interrogation”.

“Recently, the authorities have stepped up arbitrary interrogations, harassment, confiscation of personal property and arrests of Chinese students in the United States,” added China’s Foreign Ministry in a statement.

President Donald Trump’s government has maintained a very critical tone for months with the Chinese authorities, which he accuses of having concealed the magnitude of the spread of COVID-19 since the emergence of the disease in the center of the country in late 2019.

News and photo from: Correio Braziliense

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Paraná, one of the States of Brazil, wins its first Green Patent

The city of Cascavel is the first in the State of Paraná to obtain a Green Patent. This nomenclature exists because the patent is related to environmental issues aimed at improving global climate change. The owner of the patent letter is a Doctor in Computational Mechanics, Renato Cesar Pompeu. He developed a combustion engine that reduces the emission of carbon dioxide, which causes the greenhouse effect on the planet. The product will provide greater use of fuel energy, reflecting a more efficient thermal efficiency.

“It took about two and a half years of studies and development for the idea to become an invention. The achievement is immeasurable not only for me but also for our municipality for demonstrating that we have the capacity to create and invent products ”, points out the professor. The “Pompeu engine”, the name given to the invention, is under construction and practical tests on the product should be carried out by the end of the year.

News from: CGN

Brazilian scientists intend to use artificial intelligence to detect COVID-19 through coughing
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Brazilian scientists intend to use artificial intelligence to detect COVID-19 through coughing

Scientists at the Butantan Institute and Fiocruz want to train the use of artificial intelligence in the diagnosis of the disease and other lung conditions. The idea of such a program is to detect sound peculiarities that could be indicative of diseases.

The research began this week and its first phase consists of volunteers sending coughing audios. With this, the database obtained will assist in the training of artificial intelligence, which was developed by Intel.

Initially, the goal is to obtain 900 audios, of which 300 of them coming from healthy people, 300 from people diagnosed by Covid-19 by exams, and 300 with other lung diseases. Among healthy people, researchers want to force coughs from people who have had no symptoms of cough, fever, or shortness of breath in the past 30 days.

Participants with Covid-19 must be confirmed by molecular testing (PCR). In this case, the researchers will also collect data such as age, symptom days, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, among others.

Finally, for the group of people who cough without Covid-19, researchers look for diseases such as bacterial pneumonia, gastroesophageal reflux, asthma, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Only people over 18 can “donate” the cough, which should be done on SoundCov. On the website, the participant must record coughing audio (30 to 60 seconds) and then answer a questionnaire. The data collected by the survey is anonymous.

The public-private partnership was intermediated by the Competitive Brazil Movement (MBC), and also has participation from USP (University of São Paulo) and UFMS (the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul).

News from: Diário de Pernambuco

Brazilian scientists discover super therapy to cure AIDS
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Brazilian scientists discover super therapy to cure AIDS

A survey conducted by the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) showed that the cure for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is near. This is the first study, on a global scale, to test overtreatment in individuals chronically infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The coordinator of the research is the infectologist Ricardo Sobhie Diaz. Together with his team, Diaz has been working on two fronts to cure the disease. One uses drugs and substances that kill the virus at the time of replication and eliminate the cells where HIV is asleep (latency); the other develops a vaccine that causes the immune system to react and eliminate infected cells that the drug is unable to reach.

The research was carried out with 30 volunteers with an undetectable viral load, under standard treatment, according to what is currently recommended: the combination of three types of antiretrovirals, better known as “cocktail”. The volunteers were divided into six subgroups, each receiving different combinations of medicines, in addition to the “cocktail” itself.

For members of the subgroup that had the best results so far, two more antiretrovirals were administered: Dolutegravir, the strongest drug currently available on the market; and Maraviroc, a substance that forces the virus, previously hidden, to appear.

News from: Exame

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Remdesivir is approved for testing on coronavirus patients in Brazil and Europe

Brazil can already start testing with remdesivir, an antiviral medication, in the treatment of patients with COVID-19, according to a statement made by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa) on Wednesday (25).

Anvisa also announced that the study to be carried out in the country will be phase 3, which involves the observation of patients who are being treated with the drug. People who are already hospitalized with severe pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus will receive the drug, divided into two groups.

The first will be treated with remdesivir combined with another medication called tocilizumab, which acts in the body as an immunoregulator and is used against rheumatoid arthritis. The second group will receive remdesivir given with a placebo. The idea is that in Brazil, according to authorization requested by the company PPD do Brasil Suporte a Pesquisa Clínica Ltda, 105 patients pass the test.

Approval in Europe

Remdesivir has also received approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which can now be prescribed for patients diagnosed with COVID-19, requiring mechanical breathing, and who are 12 years of age or older. It is up to the European Commission to finalize the authorization in a bureaucratic manner, which should happen within a week. Once approved, the indication of the drug will be in force in 27 countries and will be valid for one year.

As there is still no proof that the drug is really effective against COVID-19, the North American pharmaceutical manufacturer Gilead needs to inform the European Union of the results of the remdesivir tests, as well as their side effects, by December.

What is Remdesivir for?

Remdesivir is an antiviral developed to combat Ebola, but which has already shown positive results in the treatment of other types of coronavirus, responsible for SARS and MERS diseases. In the United States, the drug has already been approved for serious patients in COVID-19, shortly after authorization by the regulatory agency Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

According to the FDA, the criterion used to approve the drug was a study by the American National Institute of Health (NIH), which conducted tests on 1,063 patients not only in the United States, but in Asia and Europe. The result showed that people treated with remdesivir recovered about four days before those who did not receive the drug. In early June, South Korea and India also began testing the drug.

News from: Canal Tech

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Madrid Protocol and Brazilian culture

The accession of Brazil to the Madrid Protocol, in October 2019, brought not only a new way of protecting trademarks for Brazilian businessmen abroad, but also significant changes for those professionals working in the area of trademarks as well as challenges. One of these challenges is the translation of the names of various ingredients from the cuisine, drinks, typical dishes, musical instruments, and artistic expressions into English or Spanish, languages adopted by Brazil for the use of the Madrid Protocol. Not infrequently, what is expressed in the source language in a single term needs to be translated into a sentence in order to be understood.

Typical Brazilian products and services are included in the WIPO classifier

A beautiful initiative by members of the Brazilian Patent Office’s (BPTO) Products and Services Classification Commission (CCPS), together with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), resulted in the formulation of a robust list of typically Brazilian products and services and their inclusion in the classification nomenclatures of this entity, in the so-called Madrid Goods and Services Manager (MGS), with the respective translation. There are 668 descriptions of the most varied fruits, dishes, drinks, and services typically Brazilian.

According to information on the BPTO’s own website, the elaboration of this list aims to prevent offices in other countries from granting protection as a trademark for designations that are actually descriptive of the product or service itself. This study took into account the fact that not only Brazilian legislation, but also that of the vast majority of countries prohibit registration as a trademark of descriptive and/or generic terms in relation to the products or services of interest.

In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the principle of the veracity of trademark preaches. By virtue of this principle, a trademark cannot be misleading, that is, it cannot mislead the consumer or in an improper association as to origin, composition, place of production, among other factors.

The compilation of these product and service descriptions and their inclusion in the Madrid Goods and Services Manager (MGS) with the English language equivalent can be considered an important milestone and a commendable effort, not only for the reasons already explained but also for corroborating aspects of our culture and tradition.

News from: ConJur

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BPTO and CAS establish technical cooperation agreement to strengthen fight against patent backlog

According to a publication in the Official Gazette this Wednesday (06/10/2020), BPTO and CAS, a non-profit division of the American Chemical Society, signed a technical cooperation agreement to expedite the examination of patents. The agreement establishes BPTO’s participation in a CAS Search Report pilot, with the aim of improving the patent workflow at the Institute.

The technology, which will be tested and optimized, is able to assess similarities with the state of the art from parameters of a patent application important for the examiner’s analysis. In addition, the system combines machine learning and data selected by humans, which improves the results offered.

News from: BPTO

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Dispute over the use of iPhone trademark in Brazil reaches the Federal Supreme Court (STF)

The episode for the rights of exclusive use over the iPhone trademark in Brazil has begun a new chapter this week. After losing in different courts to Apple, IGB Eletrônica, formerly Gradiente, took the case to be tried by the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

Both companies have been fighting in the courts since the beginning of the decade. The Brazilian company registered the term iPhone (with a capital I) in 2000 at the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO). It took the agency eight years to grant the registration. At that time, Apple had launched its own iPhone in 2007.

In 2012, Gradiente then launched a line of smartphones with its trademark. Equipped with the Android operating system, the devices have nothing to do with Apple’s phone. In 2014, the pre-sale of the iPhone C-600 model even made the IGB’s shares rise. Sales, however, sank.

IGB’s new action against Apple refers to an Extraordinary Appeal (ARE 1266095), which is the impugnation before the Federal Supreme Court against a judicial decision issued by a State or Federal court. In this case, the Superior Court of Justice (STJ).

In 2018, Gradiente lost the battle in the STJ court to Apple. In the decision, it was determined that both companies could use the term.

The Judge-Rapporteur, Minister Luís Felipe Salomão, argued at the time that “the use of the ‘iPhone’ trademark by Apple does not show any circumstance that implies, even potentially, parasitic exploitation, diversion of customers or dilution of the trademark, with the induction of consumers in mistake”.

The minister also made it clear that “such exegesis does not prejudice the IGB, which, having previously registered the expression ‘G GRADIENTE IPHONE’, may continue to use it, but ruling out only the exclusivity of using the expression ‘iPhone’ in isolation ”.

Filed on April 24, 2020, the appeal cites IGB Eletrônica as part of the process, as an appellant; Apple, as a defendant; in addition to the BPTO. There is no prediction as to when the appeal will be tried at the Supreme Court.

News from: Exame

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IBM releases free use of patents to fight coronavirus

Owner of one of the largest patent holdings on the planet, IBM announced the release of its entire portfolio for free use in the development of technologies that help in the diagnosis, prevention, containment, or treatment of the new coronavirus. The measure includes ownership records in fields such as artificial intelligence, where the company is one of the global leaders with Watson, and even in the area of ​​biological viruses.

According to the company, the commitment encompasses more than 80 thousand patents and applications already registered, in addition to any new application submitted until the end of 2023. Researchers, companies and institutions interested in reviewing the available patents can search the public databases of The United States Patent and Trademark Office.

“To commit to not claiming patents from entities that use them in the fight against coronavirus, IBM is joining the Open Covid Pledge, which invites organizations to make their intellectual property available for free to use to combat the pandemic and to minimize the impact of disease”, Mark Ringes, legal counsel for IBM, said in a statement.

Among the patents made available free by IBM are those for artificial intelligence, including the technologies behind IBM Watson. The system became known worldwide at the beginning of the decade, after beating human competitors on an American question-and-answer TV show. Today, Watson offers several cloud services.

But in addition to the technology field, the company has a patent that describes antiviral agents, including molecules with activity against a broad spectrum of viruses, such as dengue, H1N1 and coronavirus. Another patent describes a touchscreen that uses ultraviolet light for disinfection. There are also algorithms that predict the duration and scope of events, including epidemics.

News from: O Globo