Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Brazil

Title:	Articles 9-11 of the Industrial Property Law No. 9.279 of 14/05/1996 as last amended by Law No. 10.196 of 14/02/2001
Field of IP:	Patents
Type of flexibility:	Utility models
Summary table:

Provisions of Law

9. An object of practical use, or part thereof, is patentable as utility model if it is susceptible of industrial application, has a new form or arrangement, and involves an inventive act, that results in functioning improvement in its use or manufacture.

10. The following are not considered to be inventions or utility models:

I. discoveries, scientific theories, and mathematical methods;

II. purely abstract conceptions;

III. commercial, accounting, financial, educational, advertising, raffling, and inspection schemes, plans, principles or methods;

IV. literary, architectural, artistic and scientific works, or any aesthetic creation;

V. computer programs per se;

VI. presentation of information;

VII. rules of games;

VIII. surgical techniques and methods, as well as therapeutic or diagnostic methods, for application to human or animal body; and

IX. all or part of natural living beings and biological materials found in nature, even if isolated therefrom, including the genome or germoplasm of any natural living being, and the natural biological processes.

11. An invention and a utility model are considered to be new if they are not part of the state of the art.

(1) The state of the art consists of everything that became accessible to the public prior to the filing date of the patent application, by means of a written or oral description, by use or by any other means, in Brazil or abroad, except as provided in Articles 12, 16, and 17.

(2) For the purposes of determining novelty, the entire content of an application filed in Brazil, and not yet published, shall be considered to be state of the art from the date of filing or of claimed priority, provided that it comes to be published, even subsequently.

(3) The provisions of the preceding Paragraph shall apply to an international patent application filed according to a treaty or convention in force in Brazil, provided that there is national processing.