Brazil joins the Budapest Treaty

Author Patrícia Rizel

On last June 24th, Legislative Decree 174/25 was approved, formalizing Brazil’s adhesion to the Budapest Treaty.

The Budapest Treaty is an international agreement that establishes the recognition of deposits of microorganisms made in a single “International Depositary Authority” (IDA) by all 91 member states for the purpose of patenting. This treaty eliminates the need for multiple deposits in the jurisdictions of interest, thereby streamlining the patenting process.

It is a well-established fact that a patent confers the right to exercise temporal exclusivity over the exploitation of an invention. In return, the inventor(s)/applicant(s) is/are obliged to provide a sufficient description of the invention so that any third party can reproduce it without any deviations, i.e. based solely on the description contained in the patent document. However, when an invention involves biological materials or the uses thereof, it is difficult or even impossible to describe them. In such cases, it is imperative to submit a biological sample to a designated institution, thereby augmenting the description provided in the specification of a patent application.

The Treaty is advantageous for the Brazilian patent system in that it simplifies and reduces the costs related to the deposit of biological material, enabling Brazilian institutions to be recognised by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as IDAS, as well as increasing the legal certainty of the applicant by establishing a uniform and recognised deposit system for biological samples.

Brazil’s ratification of the Budapest Treaty serves to reinforce the national intellectual property system, aligning it with international practices and thereby stimulating innovation in the domain of biotechnology.

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