BRPTO’s website notification
The BRPTO’s new PPH Pilot program, issued under Rule#252/2019, is still receiving new participating patent offices. The BRPTO keeps notifying the Brazilian patent system users via its website about the new participating Offices. Up to this date, the following Offices have been confirmed in this new PPH program:
The Austrian Patent Office will only become effectively part of this PPH Pilot program on February 1st, 2020.
As mentioned in our client alert issued on December 2019, this program unifies the PPH agreements signed by the BRPTO and adds the possibility of expediting the examination of patent applications belonging to any field of technology. According to Rule #252/2019, eligible applications must belong to a patent family comprising an application considered endowed with the patentability requirements by the Earlier Examination Office after the substantive examination.
The Rule establishes limitations to i) the number of applications which will be accepted in the program (400 applications per year); ii) the number of applications per applicant (one per month); and iii) the number of applications per IPC Section (100 applications per section per year).It will close on November 31, 2022.
The original Portuguese version of Rule #252/2019 is available here. Please contact us for the English version.