PROSUR a tool for development

«PROSUR IS A PROJECT THAT MAKES TOOLS AVAILABLE AND PROMOTES THE WORK OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OFFICES WITH THE PURPOSE OF BUILDING HIGHER QUALITY AND QUANTITY STANDARDS».

 

By Santiago Cevallos

The industrial property system is a reflection of economic policies. For a long time Latin America had been oriented towards a model of import substitutions that some qualified as a closed economies. In this type of economies, competition was not the best mechanism to promote economic growth, and technology was not considered an element of competition, as it established barriers to facilitate the protection of national enterprises.

Currently, Latin America has a competitive economy, nationally and internationally, which demands domestic policies to pay more attention to a conscious and better use of intellectual property. In the end, it is important to conceive intellectual property as a means to promote national and regional development.

Latin American countries must have projects and policies tailored to our region. In this context and thanks to the mechanisms made available by PROSUR, new statistics on innovation and progress are reflected in the region.

Currently, intellectual property rights are the basis of economic growth, which is reflected in the establishment of a suitable innovation environment. This progress allows interaction between actors from the private sector, the academia and the State.

PROSUR is a Project that makes tools available and promotes the work of intellectual property offices with the purpose of building higher quality and quantity standards.

Thanks to the growth in the efficiency and efficacy levels of the offices of the region, intellectual property use rates had strengthen, thus the percentage of competitiveness on an international level has stood out. The creation of a regional system for the consolidation of the response time for trademarks or patents applications, make the region an attractive area for the protection of innovations.

It is the National IP Offices’ duty to go beyond registration and granting of rights. It is essential that the objectives of the intellectual property system become a reality; being the IP offices of PROSUR member countries, the main driving force behind the dissemination of knowledge, the state of the art and the management of the assets derived from innovation.

PROSUR drives us to be better. The pilot program for a single trademark application form, the accelerated patent examination, the diffusion of industrial property systems, are some of the activities that have been promoted from this area with the aim to become a model of Intellectual Property at regional level.

One of the signs that shows we are in the right track is the support we have received from the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD), who have granted us an extension of the implementation  term  of  PROSUR, we have taken giant steps towards our goals and we still have a lot of work to do.

PROSUR is a great initiative; I invite you to get to know it and to become part of it.