On December 16, the Brazilian PTO (BRPTO) and the Portuguese National IP Institute (INPI-PT) signed a partnership agreement for a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Pilot-project, directed to patent applications filed in both offices. The Pilot-project will run for 5 years.
In view of this, applicants of patent applications filed in Brazil will be able to use the examination result issued by the BRPTO in order to expedite the examination of a counterpart in Portugal. Moreover, the examination result issued by the INPI-PT can be used to expedite the examination of a counterpart in Brazil.
However, note that the limit of the BRPTO’s PPH Program (600 PPH requests/year for Phase II) – which applies to this new Pilot project – was already reached for 2021. Therefore, although the project was initiated on December 16, PPH requests between BRPTO and INPI-PT will only be possible from 1 January onwards, when a new limit of 600 PPH requests/year will be available.