Author: Roberta Namour

Source: ISTOÉ Dinheiro - SP - BUSINESS - 05/09/2009

UNTIL TODAY, SANTOS DUMONT is the symbol of inventors in Brazil. After all, he was the first in the world to fly a contraption without the aid of catapults. The feat of the famous 14 Bis, “heavier than air”, projected the creativity of the Brazilian people to the four corners of the world. Dumont represents the best and worst of Brazilian inventors. Better, genius. And, worse, a certain lack of commitment to the commercial potential of their inventions. Dumont never got to patent his designs. He wanted them to be freely used by all of humanity. “After more than 120 years, it seems that we continue to suffer from the Santos Dumont syndrome, an exaggerated, almost pathological“ altruism ”that makes Brazilians not interested in protecting their creation”, says Clóvis Silveira, president of the Association Paulista Institute of Intellectual Property (APPI). Despite this, there is a legion of Brazilian inventors who managed to circumvent these difficulties and turned inventions into big businesses. They won the respect of multinationals and changed the direction of their lives. But they rarely received support from entities focused on research and development. For example: in Brazil, there are currently more than 400 business incubators, according to data from Sebrae. And the number of beneficiaries exceeds the mark of six thousand companies, a striking number. However, the incentive excludes most Brazilian inventors. “The incubators work with small projects and do not serve those who already have a company or a large initiative”, says inventor Francisco rodrigues Lira, who, together with Ildebrando Santos, developed an anti-graffiti paint, a material with self-cleaning properties and poor dust adhesion. To get the project off the ground, they sought a bank loan, an option that, Lira advises, is only valid as a last resort. The project consumed R $ 500 thousand, of which R $ 300 thousand came from this financing. For ten years, Impercol, Lira's company, operated alone. "We almost broke because we didn't have the money to increase our production," he says. The company supplies paint to the municipalities of Curitiba, Porto Alegre and São José dos Campos. In addition, CPTM, responsible for the operation of urban train systems in São Paulo, uses the product. Impercol also exports to Italy. But, to date, the revenue generated has not covered the investment. The idea only started to attract the attention of entrepreneurs when new international contracts appeared. The company was recently incorporated by the Roma Group, from Minas Gerais. The expectation is that the production capacity of the paint will increase from ten thousand to 100 thousand gallons per month.

Financing seems to be the biggest obstacle to entrepreneurs' innovation. The BNDES is a source of cheap resources, although the process to obtain them can prove to be long and discouraging. It was there that Nelson Levy got R $ 3,1 million to develop a system for the industrial manufacture of bacterial cellulose, a kind of membrane that speeds up skin regeneration. Today, his company, BioNext, exports the product to Canada and some countries in Asia. Before conquering the foreign market, Levy also suffered from the discredit in relation to his plans. Since 2001, he has had 11 partners. Part of them gave up for evaluating that the return on investment of almost R $ 8 million would take time to appear. Today, he already thinks about expansion. “What is striking about the product is the number of possible alternatives for its use,” explains Levy. There are four more ongoing patent applications for products from the membrane. This is the case of Biostents, which has already been registered in Europe. It is a metallic prosthesis used to clear arteries. “When covering the stent with bacterial cellulose, the risks of rejection are reduced and, in the case of an aneurysm, the corrupted piece can even regenerate”, explains Levy. BioNext's intention is not to manufacture all the products it develops, but to sell licenses to use the technology. BioStents already has three interested parties: one national and two international companies.

In the midst of so many difficulties, the good news is that, year by year, more and more Brazilians are asking for property records in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Created in 1970, the PCT is a fast and inexpensive way for those who want to file patents abroad. The international document offers simultaneous protection of an invention in all 139 countries included in the system. Among the BRICs, only China and Brazil applied for more international patents in 2008 than in 2007. As a result, Brazil went from 27th to 24th in the ranking. This good result, however, is also due to the work that multinational companies do in the country to stimulate the development of new products. Here, the champion of international registrations by PCT was the subsidiary of the American Whirlpool, controller of the brands Brastemp, Consul and KitchenAid. In 2008, the company made 20 deposits (read the table “The Champions of Patents”). A multinational company is also one of the best known examples of international patents generated in Brazil: Flex Fuel technology, developed by Bosch. “In the 90s, the country faced a shortage of alcohol on the market. Whoever had a car with this fuel was badly affected ”, remembers Besaliel Botelho, vice president of Robert Bosch Latin America. "It was from there that we had the idea of ​​creating an engine that would accept alcohol and gasoline," he recalls.

Botelho led the team that developed the system. The headquarters provided logistical and financial support. Each year the company invests more than 3 billion euros in research and development and applies for more than 90 patents worldwide. “In fact, they didn't care about what we were doing here. Some were skeptical, but they gave us freedom to work on the project, ”says Botelho. According to the executive, the government also took a long time to see potential in technology. "But today Flex is the apple of the eye of the country," he says. Bosch was a pioneer in the development of the system and today more than XNUMX% of biofuel vehicles produced in Brazil leave the factory with company components. Due to its success, the headquarters appointed the Brazilian team to the Bosch Flex global development center. Then, the Brazilian team invented the Flex Start technology, which allows the car to start at a low temperature, without the need for a gasoline tank.

Two geniuses, two destinations Many experts believe that there is a big difference between Brazilian and American inventors. The former are driven by challenge and pleasure. The others are focused on the businesses that their creations can generate. It is the case of two of the greatest geniuses in history, Santos Dumont and Thomas Edison. They have few points in common in their biographies, but several different characteristics. Both shared a fascination with technology. But the similarities stop there. Dumont was heir to a wealthy family of coffee growers and specialized in the best schools in France. On the other hand, Edison was of humble origin and left school at the age of six. He was unable to adapt to the norms of the time. From then on, the differences between the two intensified. With the creation of 14 Bis, the first plane to take off without the aid of catapults, Dumont became the father of aviation. However, none of his inventions have been registered. The Brazilian genius wanted his research to be in the public domain. With that, he was surprised by the Wright brothers, who got the credit for the first plane. Legend has it that his own employees stole designs for his projects. In return, Edison sold his first invention at the age of 22, an automatic stock market price indicator, for $ 40. At the time, the value was considered a real fortune. But the inventor wanted more. His company, later to be called General Electric, became one of the largest industrial conglomerates in the world. Thomas Edison died at 84 and left a legacy of more than a thousand patents. Santos Dumont, depressed and 59 years old, committed suicide. According to family members, he did not accept the fact that his invention was used as a weapon of war.

Bosch engineers relied on the entire matrix structure. In the case of individual inventors, the story is different. The initial costs for registering patents can start at R $ 7 - from the formulation of the report to project registration fees. With the order granted, it is necessary to pay an annual tax, which can vary from R $ 100 to R $ 675. . "There is no room for amateurs or superficial reports." Other than that, it is necessary to face bureaucracy. Brazil was the fourth country in the world to have a patent law, in 1809. However, it is currently the leader in slowness in this process, according to research carried out by the international intellectual property office Clarke, Modet & Co. No Inpi (instituto Industrial Property Law), there are at least 100 thousand patent applications, filed before 2004, waiting to be approved. Among them is a christening of "Desalinated Water for Human Consumption", in progress since 1994. At 84, its creator, Britivaldo Santana, says he is the strongest elderly in the world. He boasts that he can carry a person up to 110 kg on his back. The great secret of his vitality, he guarantees, is Água da Vida, the brand of desalinated water developed by him.

The interest in the business came from a romance. “Reading a book about the difficulties of access to water for the people of the East, I started to research ways to transform the salt water of the oceans into fresh water”, says Santana. The process took 15 years and consumed almost R $ 1 million. The inventor, who once owned two banks in Rio de Janeiro - Guanabara and Moscoso Castro - and lost almost all of his fortune, spent what was left in his bank account on that idea. Even without the patent letter in hand, the product is already commercialized. All machinery used is protected under lock and key to prevent the invention from being copied. The product is sold alluding to the fountain of youth - and santana guarantees that it has therapeutic powers. Plus, it's better than Viagra, he says. His factory, located in Catanduva, in the interior of São Paulo, produces about 20 thousand liters of water on average per month - a 20 liter gallon costs R $ 220. “The difficulty of introducing this water in the market was very great because it there was specific legislation for that, ”says Santana. "I was reported to Anvisa, but in the absence of an appropriate law, there is no way to prevent the sale."

But the clashes with the Brazilian bureaucracy are not exclusive to entrepreneurs like Santana. Even multinational companies suffer from these barriers. This is the case with Rhodia. A team of scientists from the company developed an intelligent yarn with therapeutic characteristics last year. The Brazilian unit today is the platform for the development of textile fibers for the company worldwide. The emana, as it was baptized, recovers part of the energy dissipated by the body and returns it to the skin with a series of benefits. Among them, it activates blood circulation and reduces the signs of cellulite. The initial idea arose from a market demand to reduce athletes' muscle fatigue. “We would not arrive at a product like this without the structure of Rhodia”, says Thomas Canova, research and development manager at Rhodia Poliamida Fibras, who led the team. The project took four years to complete. In total, it consumed US $ 2 million of investments. But, so far, the product awaits approval by Anvisa. “As there are no precedent cases, the authorization process takes longer than usual,” explains Canova. As a precaution, the invention was registered in France. “Launching an innovation requires a large investment of time and money. Until the record is released, the invention is vulnerable. ” While hibernating in Anvisa's bins in Brazil, the emana is already marketed by a Brazilian manufacturer in the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and Korea. Thanks to an agreement with Rhodia, scala offers the product in underwear with the name Biofir. But there are indications that this scenario may soon change. INPI intends to implement an electronic system this year to streamline the patent registration process. The goal is that, starting in 2010, orders will be evaluated in up to four years. But for that, Santos Dumont syndrome will have to be left behind.