Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) has introduced new technical standards to guide applications for high renown trademark recognition, announced in Ordinance No. 25 of July 23, 2025.

These guidelines took effect in the Trademark Manual on August 7, 2025, marking a significant step forward in regulatory transparency, consistency, and predictability.

What is High Renown Recognition?

Brazilian trademark law operates under the specialty principle, which restricts trademark protection to the specific products and services registered within designated classes. This means identical or similar trademarks can coexist across different market sectors without conflict, as long as they don’t risk consumer confusion or improper association.

High renown status, codified in Article 125 of Brazil’s Industrial Property Law, breaks this rule. Trademarks granted this exceptional status enjoy protection across all business sectors—providing broad-based exclusivity that proves invaluable for both enforcement strategies and brand consolidation efforts.

Brazil currently recognizes approximately 200 high renown trademarks, including household names like McDonald’s, Volkswagen, Natura, Ferrari, and Rolex. Achieving this designation requires demonstrating widespread notoriety, prestige, and national recognition.

New Recognition Standards

The updated Trademark Manual introduces several key requirements:

• Mandatory nationwide public opinion research conducted by specialized polling institutes, surveying at least 2,000 respondents across diverse geographic regions
• Expanded survey methodology options, now accepting online or telephone polling (telephone surveys limited to word-based trademarks only), moving beyond the previous in-person-only requirement
• Clear numerical benchmarks based on spontaneous brand recall and association rates. While the initial threshold was set at 71%, this may be lowered to 61% when supported by additional evidence such as market data, advertising expenditures, and court precedents
• Standardized research methodology to eliminate inconsistencies that plagued earlier survey approaches

Under these new rules, INPI now mandates submission of nationwide public opinion research from accredited polling organizations with minimum 2,000-respondent samples. Previously, while public opinion surveys weren’t technically required, INPI routinely rejected both initial applications and ten-year renewals that lacked this supporting evidence.

These objective standards represent a major improvement, bringing much-needed predictability and transparency to high renown recognition proceedings. As noted by our partner and Intellectual Property practice head Talita Sabatini Garcia: “Allowing online polling should reduce costs and potentially speed up results delivery. However, setting rigid minimum recognition thresholds could complicate ten-year status renewals, particularly when public perception shifts or survey methodologies change.”

For guidance on high renown applications, contact IW Melcheds’ Intellectual Property team.