BPTO publishes phase III of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Program

The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO) published, by means of Ordinance n° 55, dated December 15, 2021, phase III of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) shared examination Pilot Project.In order to participate in the PPH program, the application shall meet the following conditions

The Patent Offices of the oldest priority, issuing an allowance/granting decision or issuing the IPRP may be different therebetween, provided that all have a PPH agreement with Brazil.

Currently, the following Countries/Regions have a PPH agreement with Brazil: Austria, China, Denmark, EPO, Japan, Portugal, United Kingdom, Singapore, South Korea, USA and Sweden.

Furthermore, the program continues to contemplate patent applications that claim protection for innovations belonging to all areas of knowledge, enabling to seek protection for subject matters that are identical or more restricted than those considered patentable by the office of the first examination, and to forbidden addition of any matter not examined by said office.

This new phase of the PPH follows the same criteria previously established in phase II, with the following changes now introduced:

– The request must occur between 01/01/2022 and 12/31/2024;

– The result from IPRP is now accepted as a basis for PPH requirements, limited to 100 requirements of PCT-PPH per year;

– Phase III is restricted to 800 PPH requirements per annual cycle, which will obey the order of the date and time of the priority request protocol.

As in phase II, there is a limit of 150 requirements per International Patent Classification Section (IPC) per year and of a single requirement of the same owner or applicant per week.

If you are interested in obtaining more details, have specific questions or wish to participate in the program, do not hesitate to contact us at mail@kasznarleonardos.com.