New INPI Brazil note on the patentability of inventions involving transgenic plants

INPI Brazil has posted a note (No. 01/2022) on the patentability of inventions involving transgenic plants. These are genetically engineered crop plants carrying desirable traits.

A transgenic elite event is a successful insertion of an active transgene in the crop's genome, and many events need to be screened to detect such elite events. (to read more on this: link). For novelty assessment purposes, five distinguishing features of an elite event should not be disclosed in a single document:

The technical note defines an elite event as:

1) an event of plant transformation

2) through the insertion of a transgene

3) with the employment of a genetic construct

4) in a stable way, in which this insertion occurs at a specific location in the plant genome

5) and confers a superior technical effect when compared to the other transformation events

In Brazil, the inventive step of an accessory invention related to transgenic plants would come from the technical effect of the main invention. The recognition of the inventive activity of the transgenic plant would be extended to accessory inventions, which must still be examined in terms of other patentability requirements.

To read more, please refer to Lexology or Kasznar Leonardos websites.