The Center has not just expanded its ties with companies, but also initiatives to protect and transfer the results of its research to the market. In 2020, the CNPEM’s work to protect intellectual property helped the CNPEM enter the ranking of the top 50 Brazilian organizations that filed the most patent applications with the National Intellectual Property Institute (INPI) in 2021.

And an article published by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA*) highlighted the CNPEM’s progress in protecting the findings of its studies, noting that while institutions like CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, founded in 1954 and home to the world’s largest particle accelerator) filed around 140 patent applications over the past decade, the CNPEM (founded in 1997) filed 80 over the same period.

By the close of 2021 the CNPEM had filed 23 intellectual property applications, had 6 patents in advanced stages of negotiations with companies, and two licensing contracts for 3 patent processes with approval expected in 2022.