Creation of the Latin-American Action Programme

The 21st Latin-American Summit held in Asunción (Paraguay) in 2011, closed with the drafting of a Programme of Action containing a set of decisions taken on the various subjects under debate in the meetings, one of which was Industrial Property. Decision A.4 in the Programme of Action of the 21st Latin-American Summit approved the creation, for a minimum of three years, of the Latin-American Programme for Industrial Property and Development Promotion, within the broader framework of the Latin-American Area for Knowledge.

This decision is the culmination of a process that began at the Latin-American Summit in Lisbon in 2009 and continued at the Mar del Plata Summit in 2010, at which the Latin-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) was entrusted with the task of drawing up this Latin-American Programme.

This Programme promotes cooperation amongst the Latin-American States for the sharing of good practices in the use of patent and trademark systems and of technological information for the creation of regional data bases.

Its goals are

• To strengthen capability for generating and managing Industrial Property assets in the research and business sectors, with special emphasis on SMEs.
• To promote the sharing of good practices.
• To reduce asymmetries amongst countries in the region regarding institutionality and the capability for generating Industrial Property assets.
• To strengthen the role of Spanish and Portuguese as languages for technology.
  

The Latin-American Programme is starting out in 2010. It can therefore be safely asserted that the Latin-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which is to take place this year in Cádiz, commemorating the bicentenary of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, will be a key moment for the start of application and supervision of the principles, objectives and measures it embraces.

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