Five thousand products of the Brazilian biodiversity, such as the imbu, hog plum, cupuaçu (cupuassu), açaí (ah-sci-ee), passion fruit, and pinion, will integrate a database to be presented this Tuesday, April 18, by Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) to the Interministerial Group of Intellectual Property.
The group is integrated by experts of the MAPA, as well as of the Ministries of Foreign Relations, and Science and Technology. Hundreds of species of the country’s fauna, flora and microorganisms are also part of the list.
The objective is to send the list, initially in a software format, to the major patent world offices located in Europe, United States, and Japan.
According to the Assistant of the Secretariat of Agriculture Development and Cooperativism, Leontino de Rezende, the list is an extra information tool to be used in the international patenting process.
In Japan two multinationals, Asahi Foods and Cupuaçu International, got as far as patenting the cupuaçu fruit. The registry was cancelled last year by the Japanese Copyright and Patent Office, following a series of Brazilian legal suits.
The cupuaçu fruit was registered in Japan in 1998, but Brazil only got wind of the patent four years later, when a candy manufacturers’ cooperative was prohibited from exporting products derived from the fruit of this name to Germany.
ABr