Brazil Opens the Door to 3D and Video Evidence for Hague Design Filings

On 18 June 2026, Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) announced a fresh upgrade to its electronic industrial design examination system to align more closely with the latest digital standards of the Hague System. For applicants dealing with graphical user interfaces, holographic projections and moving designs, the practical shift is clear: Brazil is now prepared to receive a fuller digital record of what the design actually is.

The headline change is that mainstream 3D modelling files and video demonstration clips can now form part of the evidentiary basis for protection, reducing the old dependence on turning motion and interaction into rigid sequences of static frames. That is more than a formatting convenience. It can affect claim framing, portfolio coordination, prior-art comparison and the way global design filings are prepared when Brazil is in scope.

Moving designs can finally be shown as moving designs

For years, applicants trying to protect GUIs and other time-based visual features in many jurisdictions had to flatten the design into screenshots, dotted-line conventions and carefully staged views. That usually satisfied formal representation rules, but it often stripped out the most commercially meaningful part of the design: timing, transitions, layered effects and the way the user visually experiences change. Allowing 3D files and video materials gives applicants a better chance to present the design in a form that resembles the product experience rather than a forensic reconstruction of it.

This matters most where the design only makes sense through sequence or spatial perception: animated interfaces, immersive display effects, holographic projections, and screen-based ornamentation that changes state. Even so, more expressive filing material does not automatically mean broader rights. Applicants will still need a clear, coherent and disciplined definition of what is claimed and what is merely contextual.

For Hague users, the real gain is less translation between systems

Brazil has already been operating as a Hague designation since 2023, and INPI has been steadily refining the local interface between domestic and international design filing practice. The practical benefit of this upgrade is not just technical compatibility. It is the prospect of less reworking. Applicants designating Brazil under the Hague System may now be able to keep a closer relationship between the original digital design record and the Brazilian-facing file, instead of rebuilding the dossier around static local presentation habits.

That matters for multinational filing teams. A design package that reads naturally in one jurisdiction often becomes awkward when recut for another. Each local adaptation adds cost, delays and the risk that one national file ends up describing the design slightly differently from the rest of the portfolio. Brazil’s new workflow should ease some of that friction, but it does not eliminate the need to check Brazilian examination expectations carefully.

Richer evidence also creates earlier exposure

There is a harder edge to this change. The more faithfully the file reflects the real design, the less room there is to hide internal inconsistency. A 3D model may reveal surface relationships, depth cues or alternate views that narrow the applicant’s room to argue later. A video clip may lock in the cadence of an animation, the beginning and end states of a transition, or the relation between claimed and unclaimed elements in ways that were easier to blur under a static-frame approach.

That means applicants should worry less about how much material they can upload and more about whether the uploaded material tells one consistent story. Problems usually appear when the title points to a GUI, the video spends too much time on device hardware, the 3D file highlights structural form instead of interface behaviour, or several interface versions are shown without making clear whether they are different states of one design or distinct designs. The system can accept richer material, but it will not resolve conceptual vagueness on the applicant’s behalf.

What filing teams should change now

The sensible response is not to flood the application with every asset on hand. It is to build a hierarchy of representation before filing. Decide first whether the commercial core lies in a static screen, a transition sequence, a holographic spatial effect, or a combined visual experience. Then assign the job of explanation carefully: which points are best shown through still views, which through a 3D model, and which through video. A smaller, cleaner record is often stronger than a larger but internally conflicted one.

For businesses using the Hague route, Brazil should now be reviewed earlier in the design-packaging stage rather than treated as a late local adaptation. Internal design, legal and outside counsel teams should test whether the same digital materials support the intended scope of protection in Brazil without creating unnecessary disclosure. The signal from this upgrade is fairly direct: Brazil is becoming more comfortable with native digital design evidence. That should make protection easier for well-prepared applicants and less forgiving for casual ones.