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Latin America
Introduction
The EPO launched its Co-operation Project with Latin America in the 1980s. Since then, political dialogue and trade between Latin America and Europe has significantly increased. Indeed, the region of Latin America is nowadays one of the European Union’s most important trading partners and represents a strategically important investment market, with significant potential for growth.
Objectives/strategy
The EPO seeks to build strong, long-term partnerships with the region’s emerging countries in order to face the new challenges of the global patent system and co-operates with the national offices to consolidate a sound industrial property (IP) system for Latin America.
The project aims to achieve these objectives by:
- organising high-level meetings and regional fora to discuss strategic issues and common challenges;
- providing access to search and examination tools to improve the quality of the patent granting procedure;
- co-ordinating training activities to increase the capacity of the national offices;
- creating a comprehensive database of Latin American patent documentation, available worldwide via the Internet;
- promoting the use of patent information in the region;
- increasing general awareness of industrial property rights (IPR) and a country’s ability to benefit from these rights;
- strengthening judicial authorities’ enforcement of IPR.
Participating states
The project covers the national offices of the following 19 countries of Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Partners
The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) act as the EPO’s main co-operation partners in Latin America.
Activities
Regional activities, co-organised with the OEPM and WIPO include:
- LATIPAT project: The LATIPAT- esp@cenet (http://lp.espacenet.com) website provides access to the bibliographic and image data of patent documents published in the Latin American countries;
- Latin American Encounter on Patents (ELDIPAT): This annual event includes a summit meeting of the 19 heads of Latin American patent offices, followed by a conference on patent information and innovation promotion;
- Annual seminar for Latin American judges and public prosecutors;
- Annual seminar on co-ordinated patent search and examination for Latin American examiners.
Bilateral activities:
The EPO also implements specific bilateral co-operation programmes with the main Latin American industrial property institutes. This co-operation covers a different range of activities, such as training, patent documentation, access to search and examination tools and the promotion of IP.
Contacts
Beatriz Blas
Project leader
Tel. +49 89 2399 5245
Fax +49 89 2399 4243
bblas@epo.org
Frances Townend
Project assistant
Tel. +49 89 2399 5233
Fax +49 89 2399 4243
ftownend@epo.org
Links
LATIPAT database: www.latipat.com;
WIPO: http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en