News

Third Phase of the Patent Prosecution Highway program is published

After reaching the limit of 600 requests per year on November 5, 2021, the BRPTO published on December 21, 2021 a new ordinance, Nº 55, which refers to the third phase of its PPH program.

The ordinance Nº 55 will be in force starting on January 01, 2022 and will be valid until December 31, 2024. Some differences from previous phase include:

i. the program will allow a total of up to 800 requests per annual cycle (instead of 600 requests of the previous phase);

ii. the program will allow a total of up to 100 requests per annual cycle using the results from the PCT as basis for the request;

iii. the program will allow up to 150 requests per annual cycle related to a same Section of the International Patent Classification (IPC);

It is important to remember that Brazil has signed PPH agreements with the following jurisdictions: United States, Europe, Japan, China, Austria, Sweden, United Kingdom, Denmark, South Korea, Singapore and more recently Portugal.

The additional rules for an application to qualify for the PPH in Brazil remain the same, i.e.:

1) Each applicant can submit one PPH request every weekly cycle;

2) The Brazilian application must have been already published or have the request for anticipated publication duly filed.

3) It is necessary to pay the fee related to the regular technical examination.

4) The claimed matter must bear an equal or more restricted scope than the one considered as patentable by a foreign PTO, with signed PPH agreement with Brazil, for the same patent family.

5) in case the PPH request is not admitted in the program, the decision cannot be appealed. Anyway, the applicant may file a new PPH request including additional documents.

6) The voluntary filing of divisional applications or claim amendments to the patent application in the period between the request for admission in the PPH program and the decision to accept the admission will cause the PPH request to be denied.

One must have in mind that patent applications for which technical examination has already started will not be admitted in the program. In addition, the admission in the PPH program does not characterize the automatic grant of the patent, since the BRPTO will carry out its examination process in accordance with the Brazilian legislation.

For any further clarification, please feel free to contact us at brj@clarkemodet.com.br.

Silvia Costa