Propiedad industrial e intelectual y desarrollo tecnológico

Róss Kaufman 30 IV.- Royalties The permJtted parameters for royalties are not expressed in the law or in the industrial property regulations. Rather, these limits are set forth in the income tax regulations concerning deductibility (Art. 231-234). The applicable coefficients date back to 1958 and range from 1% to 5% maxi– mum royalty, considering the degree ofimportance ofthe activity. Although this. addresses the question of deductibility for income tax purposes, in practice the INPI has tracked the tax limits, although a few special cases exist in which royalties higher than 5% have been permitted. The system is tightly woven, for the very income tax regulation requires that, roe example, deductions of royalties foe know-how are dependent on the registration by INPI of the contract. These limits apply aIso to purely dornestic operations. v.- Software Another controverted area of intellectual property protection in Brazil is the legal regime ror protection of cornputer software. The Law of Software -Law 7.646 ofDecember 18,1987 (the "LawofSoftware lt ) created a systern of protection based fundamentally on existing copyright law in Brazil (under Law 5.988n3) with sorne special features ror software. The Law of Software fits in the context of Brazil's Informatics Law (Law 7.232/84) which created a substantial market reserve in the area of infor– rnatics and the first PlANINor National Plan for Informatics and Automat– ion (Law 7.463186), both administered by the recently-extinguished Special Informatics Secretariat -or SEI.1t will not address these important features of Brazilian industrial policy together, because they are market defensive tooIs relying not onexpansive or restrictive intellectual property protection but on trade limitations and development defenses. But, the Law of Software, though consistent indeed (despite U. S. government pressures) with the overall informatics palicy pursued until recently, achieves its results differently. Software is defined in the Law (Art. 1°, sale paragraph) as "the expression of an organized group of instructions in natural or encoded language, contained in a physicaI support of whatever kind, of necessary