World Cup, trading cards and patents: what a trading platform can teach us about innovation.

During the World Cup, it's a tradition in Brazil for squares, newsstands, and other meeting points to fill with collectors caught up in the well-known passion for trading stickers. To help these collectors manage their collections, keep track of their numerous stickers, and interact with other users interested in trading, there are several apps and web platforms designed for this purpose.

In this context, I recently came across a sticker exchange platform that I had been using for years and was surprised by the adoption of implementations capable of solving practical restrictions that I myself had already experienced. Among them, the inability to make more than one exchange before the completion of the previous one stood out, as well as the need to manually update the number of stickers added or exchanged.

With the new features, it became possible to improve the information available and the actions performed on the platform. For example, it became possible to include more than one repeated sticker, to view different status information for each sticker and the album using its own symbology on a single page, as well as the simultaneous automation of statuses according to interactions between multiple collectors. This includes, for example, the automatic updating of the quantity of each sticker in the album according to accepted or rejected trade requests.

Based on this experience, the question arose regarding the potential patentability of such implementations. At first glance, it seemed to be a technical solution aimed at overcoming a technical problem, with direct repercussions on the experience and needs of the user public. This characteristic, in isolation, is not sufficient to conclude that it is patentable, but it can constitute a relevant indicator in the analysis of the specific case.

Considering the different spheres of intellectual property protection, pure software and algorithms, in themselves, are not patentable in Brazil, before the INPI (Brazilian PTO), and in much of the world. The source code of a website or application, in turn, finds protection under Copyright Law, which prevents the unauthorized reproduction of the platform's code.

On the other hand, software-implemented creations that exhibit technical functionality and concrete functional effects, not limited to the mere presentation of information or simple generic programming logic, may require more in-depth analysis. Thus, a solution that goes beyond a list of "items I have" and "items I want," merely cross-referencing information between users, may, under certain circumstances, be evaluated as a possible invention implemented by a computer program. This is without even mentioning the graphical interface symbols implemented on the exchange platform, which may be eligible for protection through industrial design registration.

Along these lines, if the functionality solves a problem found in the art and produces technical effects that do not relate exclusively to the way the computer program is written, the solution associated with the platform's behavior could, in theory, be protected by a patent, especially in the form of a process, provided that the requirements of novelty, inventive step, and industrial application in relation to the existing state of the art are met.

Ritter conducts thorough, case-by-case analysis of the various protection options applicable to intellectual creations. If you have any questions on the subject, feel free to discuss them with us.