Currently there are 28,000 patent applications being filed per year with the BPTO, thus the inventory of applications awaiting examination is larger than accumulated 8 years of filings. In a recent publication, the BPTO informed that in Brazil the average delay between filing and the publication of a favorable examination decision is longer than 10 years, and the longest delays are in the areas of telecommunications (almost 14 years), pharmaceuticals (longer than 13 years) and electronics (longer than 12 years).