Jorge Avila President National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) Rio de Janeiro

Bio Sketch

Jorge Avila is B.Sc. (Engineering), MSc. (Business Administration) and PhD (Collective Health/Planning and Public Policies). The President of Brazilian INPI since 2006, Jorge Avila has been the VP of that Institute between 2004 and 2006, has been the Executive-Director of the Brazilian Innovation Agency, FINEP, from 1999 to 2003, and of Rio de Janeiro Industrial Development Organization, CODIN, from 1995 to 1999. He has also worked as an engineer and technical consultant for Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. Petrobras, and as a visiting professor for various universities in Brazil.

Title:

Is Further Harmonization Necessary to Cooperation ?

Cooperation among national patent offices is one of the obvious initiatives to confront the problem of patent backlogs worldwide, as there is always some duplication of efforts each time a patent is filed and examined in more than one country. This paper addresses the relationship between operational cooperation (among IP authorities) and patent law harmonization (among countries). The aim is to demonstrate that operational cooperation is possible with the level of harmonization already provided by TRIPS. Cooperation with no further harmonization may be built easily, generates much less tensions than harmonization-based initiatives, and can be more effective in all respects.