Camelier moderates INTA Roundtable in Sao Paulo.
On May 18, 2013 was held the INTA Roundtable in São Paulo, at the headquarters of the Sao Paulo Intellectual Property Association.
Mr. Luiz Carlos dos Santos Gonçalves lectured about the advances and retreats of the draft bill of the Brazilian Penal Code for an audience of thirty people (attendance list attached), mostly lawyers specializing in intellectual property.
At some point, Mr. Luiz Carlos Gonçalves reported that during the process of writing the draft bill, many members of the committee of jurists felt that the crimes against intellectual property should be removed from the bill, especially crimes against trademarks, patents, copyright and unfair competition, since they represent low risk against society.
Those jurists believe that such conduct should be treated just as tort, subjected to fines and compensation payments.
Fortunately, most of the criminal penalties were kept by the commission of jurists headed by him and the bill is now in the Federal Senate for discussion and future vote probably over 2014.
Many attendees argued that if those crimes were excluded from the bill we would be facing a major penal setback, considering that crimes against intellectual property exist on the Brazilian legal system for nearly 100 years.
This setback could also give rise to increasing violations of trademarks and unfair competition.
However, one of the strengths of the draft bill, highlighted by the lecturer, was the increase in penalties for some crimes, such as violation of trademark (Article 177 of the draft bill) increasing the penalty, that currently is imprisonment of three months to one year, to imprisonment from one year to four years.
The reason for this increase is that the commission of jurists understood that organized crime uses the trademark counterfeiting (piracy) to practice money laundering and it is interest of the state crack down such behavior.
Finally, Mr. Luiz Carlos Gonçalves, recommended that either INTA and other associations of intellectual property in Brazil make efforts to convince the Federal Senate to keep intellectual property crimes with penalties increased for the future Penal Code, as well as insert others have been deleted.
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