High-Level Tripartite Meeting on the Madrid Protocol

December 1, 2017

On June 21, 2017, the Bill on the Accession to the Madrid Protocol was sent to the Brazilian Congress. Following on from this, the WIPO Brazil Office (WBO) organized a High Level Meeting on the Madrid Protocol on October, 24, 2017, with the participation of the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) of Brazil.

WIPO Director General, Mr. Francis Gurry, opened the meeting, greeting participants and introducing the topic via video-conference from Geneva. The objective was to promote the debate on the importance of Brazil acceding to the Madrid Protocol. Participants considered the positive economic and social impacts that a possible accession to the Protocol would bring to Brazilian companies, thanks to:

• a reduction in trademark registration costs of up to 90%,
• much simplified administration of trademarks by rights holders, and
• broad territorial coverage of the protection.

Training session

On October 18, 2017, WBO organized a training session on the possible accession of Brazil to the Madrid Protocol for 11 officials from the Brazilian IP Office (INPI). Mr. Juan Rodriguez, Senior Legal Officer at WIPO’s Madrid Legal Division, participated in the event via video conference. He made a presentation and answered several questions about classification, the role of INPI, the role of WIPO, etc.