The BRPTO targets to reduce to 2 years the pendency time until decision of patent applications, by 2026. This target was agreed with Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services (MDIC), under which the agency is.

To meet the target, the BRPTO arguments the need to change art. 32 and 33 of the Brazilian Patent Statute (Law #9,279/96 – LPI). Currently, art. 32 defines the examination request as the time limit for presenting amendments to patent applications. Art. 33 stablishes a 36 months-term to file the examination request, from the filing date. Changes to LPI intend to extinguish the 36 months-term (art. 33) and to stablish the “first office action” as the new time limit for presenting amendments (art. 32). Therefore, the examination request would be automatically filed at the filing of patent application and applicants could amend their applications until the “first office action”.

Changes to LPI are against results gathered on the Invitation for Public Comments #1/2023, conducted by the BRPTO itself in 2023, as most respondents (86.49%) prefer keeping the 36 months-term. Most respondents consider advantageous changing art. 32 to provide additional term for amending the application.

Data collected from patent applications filed at the BRPTO show that most applicants take advantage of almost the entire 36 months-term provisioned by art. 33 LPI to file the examination request. Furthermore, the majority of amendments are also presented at the same period. Graph below shows this is the general pattern found for patent applications filed at the BRPTO. Even the possibility of anticipating the application´s position on the new substantive examination queue did not change the pattern.

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The timing for presenting amendments to patent applications and filing their examination request