IBM increases patent registrations in Brazil
IBM has seen a 114% increase in its patent registrations in Brazil with 94 new inventions cataloged in 2019 despite local difficulties around the analysis and granting of patents in the country.
In 2018, the company registered 56 patents in 2018 and in 2017, 44 inventions were registered by the company's Brazilian research team. The patents include inventions in areas such as weather forecasting. In Latin America, some 132 patents were filed in total last year, according to the company.
The complexity of patent registration is often cited as one of the main obstacles to innovation in Brazil. According to the 2019 edition of the Global Innovation Index by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in partnership with business school Insead and Cornell University, Brazil ranks 66th on a list of 129 countries, behind all the BRIC nations and down two positions from 2018.
Brazil has seen a consistent decline in the GII ranking, hovering around the 60th and 70th position over the last decade. One of the reasons for that situation, according to Insead, is the insufficient number of patented inventions.
According to the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) there is a bottleneck of about 150,000 patent applications. INPI's goal, however, is to reduce that amount by 80% by 2021 and the institute has introduced actions such as a pilot to fast-track the process of granting patents as a way to unleash innovation in the country.
Globally, the number of valid patents grew by 6.7% to reach 14 million in 2018, according to WIPO's numbers. The United States is considered the world's intellectual property giant, with 3.1 million patents in force, followed by China with 2.4 million and Japan with 2.1 million.