On June 18, 2019, the Brazilian Patent Office (BPTO) published in the Industrial Property Gazette (often referred to as RPI) Resolution 239/2019 and Instruction #01/2019 (available here) that regulate the conditions for prioritized examination requests of patent applications. The new rules will be valid for some fast track programmes in Brazil, with the aim of simplifying and streamlining the proceedings.

The fast track programmes under the new Resolution 239/2019 are:

  • patent applications due to applicant aged 60 or above; applicant suffering from functional or mental disabilities or other severe disease; applications under specific situations, such as when the unauthorized reproduction of the subject matter of a patent application is taking place in Brazil or when and where an applicant is in need of a granted patent to receive BR funds to exploit the subject matter of the patent; applications relevant for national emergency or public interest (Resolution 151/2015);
  • Applications filed by Brazilian micro and small entities (Resolution 236/2019);
  • Applications related to eco-friendly and green technologies (Resolution 175/2016);
  • Applications first filed at the BRPTO (Resolution 212/2018);
  • Applications related to diagnosis, prophylaxis and treatment of AIDS, cancer, rare diseases or (pre-defined) neglected diseases (Resolution 80/2013 and 217/2018).

In this respect, all the abovementioned Resolutions, namely 151/2015, 236/2019, 175/2016, 212/2018, 80/2013 and 217/2018, will be revoked.

The main purpose of the new rules is to standardize the requirements for a patent application to be eligible for a priority examination program, in order to facilitate the process both for the applicant and the BPTO. It is expected that the procedure to check whether the patent applications meet the mandatory conditions for the priority examination to be granted is simplified. The ultimate goal is to expedite the examination of patent applications, as part of the BPTO's efforts to improve the Brazilian patent system and reduce the backlog.

The changes also include some administrative acts. For such reason, some new service codes have been created.

According to the BPTO, with the new rules, the time to analyze whether a patent application is eligible for a programme should be up to one month and the application should be examined in about four months.

The new Resolution and Instruction will enter in force on July 01, 2019.

Source: www.inpi.gov.br

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