XVIII Regional Seminar on Intellectual and Industrial Property for Judges and Prosecutors of Latin America

The eighteenth edition of the Regional Seminar on Intellectual and Industrial Property for Judges and Prosecutors of Latin America was held this year in Montevideo.

The purpose of the seminar, organized by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, O.A. (SPTO) and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID), with the collaboration of the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) is the exchange of experiences between members of the Judiciary from the different countries of Latin America.

The participants in it were almost twenty representatives selected from different countries in South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.

In addition to these people, representatives of various institutions were appointed to discuss the different issues that were considered relevant from a legal point of view. Apart from the aforementioned organizing institutions (SPTO, WIPO and the Spanish Judiciary), speakers from both the European Patent Office (EPO) and the academic world participated, which was represented by professors from the University of Alcalá de Henares and the University of the Andes.

The speakers, from a privileged place in the historic center of Montevideo, the Training Center of the Spanish Cooperation Agency, exchanged experiences to complete a theoretical-practical vision of the legal issues of Industrial and Intellectual Property.

The Seminar was divided into four modules: patents, trademarks, industrial design and copyright and related rights.

During the final evaluation of the Seminar, most of the participants highlighted the links they had formed between them and the quality of the presentations. However, they demanded more time for debate and more depth on certain topics such as crafts, even more being in Latin America.

Facing the challenges related to Artificial Intelligence, New Technologies, the protection of handicrafts and the growing importance of personal branding will, perhaps, remain issues to be addressed in future editions.