Easier Said Than Done: The Peculiarities Of The Trademark Registration System In Brazil

At first glance it might appear that registering a trademark in Brazil is a simple task. There is a certain level of harmonization within IP Laws and the basic steps, such as filing an application, awaiting the PTO analysis, paying the registration fees and securing the registration itself, tend to be very similar.

However, there is a long way between to go between the development of a trademark and its effective protection and there are some aspects of the Brazilian trademark registration system that could trip up someone without sound knowledge of the path, or even present unsurmountable obstacles.

The two most important things to be know relate to how trademarks rights are acquired in Brazil and the performance, or lack of performance, of the Brazilian PTO.

So, first things first.

Brazil is a first to file country and trademark rights are acquired upon registration.

The relevance of this information is that failing to register a trademark at the earliest stage possible, may cause serious problems as a third party may beat the rightful owner of the trademark in securing a registration, Subsequent fighting over said registration may be very frustrating, costly and time consuming. Accordingly, if Brazil is a market of interest, a local application should be filed as soon as possible and such filing should always precede the local launch of the corresponding product or service.

The second most relevant aspect refers to the never-ending backlog of work of the Brazilian PTO and the consequent delays in the prosecution of trademark applications.

In this connection, it should be noted that Brazil is still one of the slowest countries in Latin America in relation to trademark registration and is really far behind its neighboring countries. The current backlog of applications awaiting examination before the Brazilian PTO is four hundred and fifty thousand and each year over one hundred and fifty thousand new applications are filed.

As a consequence, the average time for securing a trademark registration in Brazil is around 30 months, even if no obstacles are encountered throughout its prosecution. If an opposition is filed or a rejection decision is issued, trigerring the filing of an appeal, the time of analysis can go up to between six to nine years.

Given the above, conducting searches before filing trademarks is strongly recommended.

In our fast track world, no company can wait so many years to launch a new trademark and a trademark search...