Additional information

Integrated circuit topography is a series of images positioned, built, or encoded in any means or ways that represent the three-dimensional configuration of the layers that compose an integrated circuit and in which each image represents, in whole or in part, the geometric arrangement of the surface of the integrated circuit in any stage of its conception or manufacture.

Law 11,484 of May 31, 2007 provides, in chapter III, for the protection of the intellectual property of integrated circuit topographies.

The protection provided for applies only to original topography, in the sense that it results from the intellectual effort of its creator or creators and that is not common or ordinary for technicians, experts, or manufacturers of integrated circuits, at the time of its creation. A topography resulting from a combination of common elements and interconnections or that incorporates, with due authorization, third parties’ protected topographies shall only be protected if the combination, considered as a whole, is original.

The protection shall not be granted to concepts, processes, systems, or techniques in which the topography is based, or to any information stored through the use of such protection.

INPI’s Normative Instruction No. 109 of September 30, 2019 regulates the procedures for deposit and processing applications for registration of integrated circuit topography with INPI.

The protection of integrated circuit topography shall be granted for ten (10) years from the filling of the application with INPI or the date of the first commercial exploitation (whichever occurred first).

The registration of integrated circuit topography grants its holder the exclusive right to explore it, and third parties are prohibited, without the holder’s consent, from:

I.    reproducing the topography, in whole or in part, by any means, including incorporating it to an integrated circuit;

II.    importing, selling, or distributing in some other way, for commercial purposes, a protected topography or an integrated circuit in which a protected topography is incorporated; or

III.    importing, selling, or distributing in some other way, for commercial purposes, goods that incorporate an integrated circuit in which a protected topography is incorporated, only to the extent that it still is an illegal reproduction of topography.