(BRPTO’s website communication published on January 16, 2019)

The BRPTO and the JPO signed, on January 16, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan, the renovation of the PPH Pilot program between both Offices. The new phase of the program will be in force for two years starting from April 2019 and up to 200 applications shall be accepted into it, being limited to one application per applicant per month.

According to the BRPTO, the technical fields eligible for this new phase encompass: energy, machinery, audiovisual technology, telecommunications, digital communication, computer technology semiconductors, all of them already part of Phase I of said PPH program, and, additionally, new technical fields such as materials and metallurgy, agrochemicals, polymers, microorganisms and enzymes.

As stated in the BRPTO-JPO PPH technical guidelines (available here), the following IPC codes shall be encompassed by the new phase of the BRPTO-JPO PPH Program.

Information technology arts

All requirements necessary for participation on Phase II shall be listed in a new rule to be issued soon by the BRPTO.

Since 2013, the BRPTO has been trying to reduce its massive patent backlog. Among the measures adopted by the BRPTO is the implementation of several PPH agreements with different offices all over the world. Currently, there are seven PPH programs available at the BRPTO, which are:

PPH Programs currently available at the BRPTO

Up to this moment, the PPH programs have produced the following results at the BRPTO:

The BRPTO has other expedited examination programs, which can be used for applications that meet some pre-established requirements:

Expedited Examination Programs currently available at the BRPTO

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