Venezuela IP News | COVAPI Addresses Patent Protection under the Venezuelan System, in June 23 Webinar

COVAPI, the Venezuelan IP Agents Association, addressed the current status of the Venezuelan patent system in a webinar initially scheduled to cover patent protection in the subject jurisdiction, with a special reference to pharmaceutical and food patents. It featured a panel of esteemed colleagues, including experienced IP attorneys Sebastian Gonzalez and Ricardo E. Antequera, and former Head of the Patent Division at SAPI, the Venezuelan patent and trademark office, Carlos Pacheco.

Panelists also highlighted the importance of SAPI resuming cooperation with other IP offices, and opening to interaction with applicants and agents, to further bettering its activities.

Following introductions by José Gutierrez -COVAPI Chair- and Mr. Gonzalez, who highlighted the role of patents in facilitating innovation in the health industry and the difficult road from creating a patentable invention to obtaining a patent; panelists went straight to discussing the background of the 1955 Industrial Property Law and the circumstances around it, as well as the transition to a new IP legal system while Venezuela was a Member to the Andean Community, how the patent division at SAPI was structured and how patent examination was executed both before and after became an Andean country.

The consensus was that changes were not as significant or drastic when transitioning from the 1955 IP Law to the Andean Industrial Property Common Regime, as they were from 2002 to this date, with more of a collectivist approach to Intellectual Property, which not only influenced how patents were viewed and examined within the PTO but, ultimately, resulted in a halt to the granting of patents in the country and the systematic refusal of refusal of pharmaceutical patent applications.

While elaborating on how patent examiners should approach an application, Mr. Pacheco also highlighted the decline in the volume in applications filed in Venezuela as a result of the PTO’s current approach to patents. Reference was also made to the different ways the PTO has been refusing patent applications, which either showed both a misconception surrounding certain patent exclusions or a blatant bias against the granting of patents.

During the session, Mr. Antequera pointed out the fact that patent protection is prescribed in the Venezuelan Constitution, which also mandates that patents be protected under the terms set out in international treaties, i.e. the Paris Convention and the TRIPS Agreement; and how the fact that such treaties ought to prevail over certain patent exclusions prescribed in the 1955 IP Law, should also result in the PTO not only granting patents, but doing so in all fields of technology.

While moderating the panel, and among different specific topics being discussed, Mr. Gonzalez also referred to an approach for dealing with the backlog associated with patent applications in Venezuela, specifically as implemented in Brazil and how it showed positive results.

As troublesome as the current situation of the Venezuelan patent landscape is, with over 16 years without granting patents in the country and a myriad of problems resulting from SAPI’s reluctance to comply with its legal obligations; COVAPI’S initiative and the panelists’ technical, thorough and fluid analysis of such problems, during the session, was a breath of fresh air for a jurisdiction in desperate need of a transition towards a scenario where the patent and trademark office effectively fosters the protection IP rights, and where the different actors within the IP sector are willing to have the important -and not always easy- discussions necessary for such scenario to materialize.

A video recording of the session is available, upon request to the COVAPI Board: juntadirectivacovapi@gmail.com