The role of intellectual property in technological development has been increasingly recognized and incorporated in national policies of South America’s leading economies. Building on a traditional of regional cooperation, six years ago the Intellectual Property offices of the  governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador , Paraguay, Peru, Suriname  and Uruguay launched a cooperative effort to jointly strengthen the quality and efficacy of national IP regimes. The result was the Prosur initiative.   Supported by the Inter-American Development Bank, Prosur fosters operational cooperation among participating IP offices through action guidelines in the fields of patents, trademarks, technologic information and informatics.  One of the group’s main purposes is to identify and implement common solutions for common problems found in the execution of their shared task of promoting and protecting intellectual property.

On April 3, from 3 to 5 PM, the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute, Canada Institute, Latin American Program and Program on America and the Global Economy will host a workshop with the heads of participating IP offices to review progress made by Prosur, as well as plans to further collaboration and challenges ahead. They will be joined by colleagues of the United States and Canada, who will share experiences of comparable initiatives such as IP5, a forum of the world’s five largest intellectual property offices – United States, European Union, South Korea, China, and Japan - , and the Vancouver Group, a similar collaborative project by  Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia.