We are pleased to announce recent developments in patent prosecution in Brazil, published in IP Journal nr. 2814 of December 10, 2024, as per the Brazilian PTO’s Ordinance nr. 48/2024. With the PTO’s integration into the Global Patent Prosecution Highway (GPPH) on July 06, 2024, and the implementation of Phase V of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Program starting January 01, 2025, significant changes are underway to streamline the prosecution of patent applications.
The Global PPH or GPPH is a plurilateral PPH Program that consolidates the three pre-existing bilateral types of PPH: the traditional PPH, PPH-PCT, and PPH Mottainai. Consequently, the primary changes in the Brazilian PPH Program pertain to the annual limit on PPH Requests and the number of collaborating Patent Offices involved.
The previous quantitative restrictions on PPH and PPH-PCT Requests per year and per Applicant per week have been removed, enabling broader participation in the Global PPH Program. Annual request quotas have now been set at up to 3,200 PPH Requests, with a maximum limit of 1,000 requests per International Patent Classification (IPC) section.
The number of collaborating Patent Offices will increase from 23 to 35, now including those of the USA, Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, UK, Russia, Israel, Chile, Uruguay, and other jurisdictions (Please access: Source 1; Source 2).
The system plays a crucial role in expediting the prosecution of patent applications in Brazil. Applicants are advised to review their patent portfolios and select cases that require faster processing. The main conditions for applying to the Global PPH can be found here.
If you need our assistance to handle any pending patent application or your Brazilian patent portfolio, please address a message to us.
