3.3.4 Judicial education on intellectual property
Judges, unlike the administrative agents who work at the INPI, do not have specific training in the field of intellectual property from the schools of judges – both as they enter the career and throughout it – except for the federal judges who are members of the Regional Federal Appellate Court of the 2nd Region. This court is a pioneer in the propagation of knowledge in the field of intellectual property, and its respective school, the School of Judges of the Regional Federal Court of the 2nd Region (Escola da Magistratura Regional Federal 2ª Região), which has a specific commission in the field of intellectual property,39 because the city of Rio de Janeiro is the home of the INPI’s headquarters and where, consequently, most of the actions for the annulment of patents and registrations granted by the INPI are concentrated.
In this way, to guarantee the scope of specialization, the São Paulo School of Judges (Escola Paulista da Magistratura) is making progress on the dissemination of knowledge in the field – even if, for now, sporadically and nonsystematically – such as through the seminar that was held in June 2021, titled “Contencioso Patentário no Judiciário – Análise e Aprimoramentos” (Patent Litigation in the Judiciary – Analysis and Improvements), and the Intellectual Property Expertise Course held from March to May 2022.
In addition, the importance of training a robust and qualified body of professionals has been identified. These professionals may be chosen by judges in patent disputes as experts to improve the management of cases. Consequently, two important initiatives that could be adopted by Brazilian courts were identified:
- training courses to be constantly offered by schools of judges – some in collaboration with the INPI – for the improvement of experts; and
- the preparation of a list of specialized professionals from which judges could choose during the evidentiary stage of the cases.