Patents and their relationship with family agribusiness

Brazilian family agribusiness is an important factor in generating income, being responsible for the majority of food production and employing around 80% of the workforce in rural areas. Even though it contributes decisively to the regional and national economy, family farming demands agricultural machinery, which is developed to meet its needs. In this way, it is elected as the protagonist of the policy aimed at rural development, with family farmers, who are inserted in this context as producers of new technologies, adapting and creating equipment and machines suited to their requirements. The family property is therefore configured as a laboratory of prototypes, which are designed and tested by the farmer himself, using empirical notions in his daily life to develop the devices.

Producing and adapting machines and equipment is not an obstacle for the producer, the greatest difficulty occurs, without a doubt, when he thinks about registering his invention, as the bureaucratic process of obtaining a patent is expensive (in values) and exhausting (in time). This lethargic official process of recognizing an innovation is called an invention patent.

According to INPI, “patent is a temporary property title over an invention or utility model, granted by the State to inventors or authors or other natural or legal persons holding rights over the creation”. With this title, the inventor or patent holder has the right to prevent third parties, without their consent, from producing, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the product covered by their patent and/or process or product obtained directly from the documents by he patented. In return, the inventor is obliged to reveal in detail all the technical content of the matter protected by the patent.

The innovation center for agricultural machinery and equipment - NIMEq at the Federal University of Pelotas - UFPel, concerned with the inventive community, made up of family producers, has sought over the years to both design new tools to meet the sector's shortages and assist and guide producers to correctly request their patents. Currently, NIMEq has 10 patent requests, arising from the investigation of the needs of producers, which have been publicized at fairs aimed at them.

Figure 1: NIMEq machines, aimed at family producers.

Source: NIMEq personal archive, 2016.

Figure 2: Mechanical traction and animal traction fertilizer seeders.

Source: NIMEq personal archive, 2016.

Data on innovation patents in Brazil

Brazil is considered a country with weak innovative activity. The low number of patents (41.453 valid patents) reveals difficulty in converting the knowhow produced into goods and services. The country thus occupies 19th place in ranking world of knowledge production.

In the years 2003 to 2013, 34.189 patents were granted, highlighting the gap between scientific production and the generation of innovation. This situation is worrying in a context where the main driver of economic growth is technological development.

This situation also results from an institutional framework to support innovation that is still in the development process. In Brazil, this architecture began to be implemented in the mid-90s, with the enactment of laws protecting intellectual property and the institution of Sector Funds to finance research and development and promote synergies between the business segment and research institutions. . Subsequently, in 2004, the Innovation Law was enacted and in 2010 the country already had a total of 234.797 researchers with 103 registered patents in that year. In 2014, this number tripled, with 334 technological innovations being filed, showing an increase of 224 %.

Congresses, seminars, lectures, among others, on Technological Innovation, Intellectual Property and Patents, have discussed the subject with the purpose of evaluating the factors that prevent the conversion of Brazilian academic research into patents. One of these factors, perhaps the main one, is the lack of initiative on the part of universities to invest in innovative projects.

However, employing innovations is not an obstacle for the producer to develop their equipment, as here the focus is different. The problem that extends to rural areas is in the sense of registering and publicizing their inventions, due to the current bureaucracy, which discourages producers from improving their lives in the countryside.

How to apply for an invention patent

The creations originate from an idea, which is not an obstacle for rural producers, as the majority of these “field engineers” already have the innovation implemented. However, it is important to clarify that it is not possible to patent ideas, as the Industrial Property Law (LPI) excludes from protection as an invention and as a utility model a series of actions, creations, abstract ideas, intellectual activities, scientific discoveries, methods or inventions that cannot be industrialized. Some of these creations may be protected by Copyright, but not by the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI).

The big difficulty is how to proceed from this point on. Generally, producers seek to identify people who, in some way, have some connection with a research institution, or with rural extension programs. However, by carrying out this action, the producer runs the risk of having his innovation copied and/or patented by someone else. Ideally, he should know his rights and the steps to be taken regarding its creation.

One way for the producer to publicize his creation is through the registration of his innovation in the Gerdau Melhores da Terra Award, which was created 32 years ago, with the aim of recognizing innovations originating in the field, accompanied by the agricultural machinery and equipment industry, which points out the most modern and efficient creations in the sector. The Award is divided into three categories, which are: Highlight, Expointer New and Research and Development. Each of them has its own specificity, that is, in the highlighted category those who can register are producers involved in family and scale farming, with machines and equipment that are at least one year old and are in use in the market and in the field. The Expointer New category recognizes products launched less than a year ago and that are present at the current year's fair. The third Research & Development category is aimed at academics and professionals in agricultural sciences, whether or not linked to educational institutions, with work that contributes to the advancement of agriculture, productivity, quality of life and the preservation of the environment of rural populations.

This award is an excellent alternative for recognizing innovation, but it does not guarantee the farmer copyright rights.

The correct way to protect your invention is to effectively register a patent for the product. To this end, the producer/inventor can access, via the internet, the website of the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), where he will find a page with the most recurring questions about patents, and a step-by-step guide, which contains the procedures to be carried out to patent innovations.

The patent application must contain: application; descriptive report; claims; drawings (if applicable); summary; and proof of payment of the remuneration related to the deposit. When the request is forwarded, the difficulties increase, as Brazil today has a queue of more than 180 thousand innovations waiting for an evaluation, to find out whether they will receive a patent registration or not . In practice, this means an average wait of 11 years for Brazilian inventions to be approved by the INPI.

The delay, in addition to paralyzing some services of small and medium-sized companies that depend on approvals to run their businesses, discourages the entrepreneurial spirit of many Brazilians. This delay in registration leads to an increase in the value of the patent, as while the registration is not approved, the innovation generates costs until it is approved. If the process were carried out quickly, it is estimated that the value of Brazilian patents, on average, would cost around R$5.000,00, however this value could extend to R$10.000,00, depending on the patent application procedure. The amount previously mentioned is not easy to obtain for small rural producers, however, if this process is delayed, it can generate an annual cost of around R$ 1.000,00 in the beginning years, with an annual adjustment plus interest, in order to maintain the patent. Apart from other fees with the application, such as examination, issuance of the charter, among others. Depending on the number of years the request is being processed, the estimated value of R$5.000,00 could double or even triple.

Final considerations

The lethargy in the process of registering Brazilian innovations results in inaccessibility for the family farmer in obtaining patents and this is due to the time spent in carrying out the evaluations and the high amounts required to apply for the document. Such factors end up creating a disincentive for producers to patent their creations. Therefore, they end up not being patented, being subject to copying by other sectors.

For better results, the Brazilian government could streamline patenting policy, in order to benefit inventors and researchers, aiming at the country's economic and technological growth.