The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BRPTO) published, on October 22, 2019, Resolution No. 252/2019, which unifies the rules of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programs and expands the project to all technological fields. The mentioned resolution will enter into force on December 1st 2019.

Under PPH agreements, the examination of a patent application can be prioritized by the BRPTO when it has already been analyzed by the national/regional office signatory of a PPH agreement. Similarly, if a patent application has already been object of analysis in Brazil, the examination process in another country member of a PPH agreement may be expedited.

Brazil currently has seven PPH agreement partners: China, Denmark, United States, Europe, Japan, United Kingdom and Prosur. The latter covers Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Equator, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. Each PPH agreement had its own particularities. Now, with the present change, such rules have been unified for all PPH agreements, with a limitation of 400 requests per year, and each Applicant will be allowed to file one request per month.

The mentioned unification of rules is an important step towards the simplification and acceleration of examination procedures for both the patent applicant and the BRPTO. According to the BRPTO, on average, the patent applications analyzed via PPH agreements in Brazil in 2019 were granted within eight months, but this time frame may be reduced to only one month.

 

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