Online Courses & PTO Cooperation | Colombia-Chile
June 9th, 2012 by Danny G. Pérez y Soto - B&R Research
INAPI (Chile) - SIC (Colombia)
On May 14th 2012 the Chilean PTO, INAPI, launched the second version of their online education platform Aula INAPI –INAPI Classroom–. This has been considered as a successful initiative for the spread of knowledge on Intellectual Property, having up to 250 active students on its pilot program in 2011. The user may choose between 3 courses: Intellectual Property, Introduction to Trademarks, and Introduction to Patents; all courses are free of charge and there are tutors to guide the students through the process.
We have registered for the Trademarks course, and consider this tool to be a useful resource for informing the general public on basic aspects of IP. We’ll post on this blog and our social networks profiles the dates for the next version of Aula INAPI as soon as they are published.
Cooperation Agreement.
This tool has recently been licensed to the Colombian PTO, SIC, during the Meeting of Directors of Industrial Property Offices held in Dominican Republic at the beginning of June. The directors of the INAPI (Chile) and the SIC (Colombia) signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation among these two offices. The agreement will be valid for three years and includes:
▪ The licensing of the virtual learning tool Aula INAPI, as to adjust it to Colombian legislation and provide this service to the SIC’s users.
▪ The sharing of experiences on the INAPI’s anti-piracy campaign Protege tu Idea. Protege tu creación (Protect your idea. Protect your creation).
▪ An annual exchange of documentation on Trademarks, Patents, Designs and other Intellectual Property issues.
Both the licensing of the online learning tool and the annual exchange of documents are very interesting developments for both PTOs.
The anti-piracy campaign, on the other hand, seems to be largely unsuccessful –as most anti-piracy campaigns are–, since they fail to provide convincing arguments and to address the real issues behind the violation of Intellectual Property rights. This campaign is probably an effort from the Chilean PTO to show action on enforcement of IP rights, since they were blacklisted in this year’s Special 301 Report on the state of IP worldwide (along with other 11 countries in Latin America) and they have a FTA in force with the US.
It would be desirable for the Colombian PTO to identify such problems in the campaign and to promote smart and effective campaigns on this issue, that go beyond the criminal law punishment of infringements and that explains the real advantages of using licensed content and original products.
We’re sure this memorandum of understanding will turn out to be a highly productive experience for both countries, and encourage other PTOs to follow this trend of Latin America cooperation on IP.
