Colombia was the only Latin America country chosen by the World Organization for Intellectual (WIPO) to implement the Program of Assistance to Inventors (PAI). Other countries chosen were Morocco and Philippines.The program, as can be guessed by its name, give assistance to investors. In this particular case the assistance in in the form of free legal advice to natural and legal persons (of limited resources) to complete the process of filing patents.
The pilot of this program started back in 2015 and recently the Deputy Superintendent for Industrial Property (SIC) visited Geneva, Switzerland to present the balance of the program. It counted 11 projects and 24 lawyers have already been chosen by WIPO to provide services pro bono.
According to SIC, the project will also help to “reduce the level of dropouts in the patent application”. In Colombia the withdrawing of patent applications is approx. 50%.