We are writing to report good news: as of April 1, 2020, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) becomes part of the Brazilian PTO’s Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) project, which is another initiative that focuses on fixing the patent backlog in Brazil.
This program is tech neutral. Hence, applicants are able to both expedite examination and increase chances of allowance no matter the application’s area of technology.
Each applicant can only request the Brazilian PTO to include one application per month into the PPH Programs. In total, the Brazilian PTO will accept just 400 PPH requests per year, and not more than 100 in the same International Patent Classification Section per year. The Brazilian PTO will publish a monthly report with updated information regarding the PPH requests. The agreement will be in force until March 31, 2025, according to Resolution PR nº 252/2019.
Considering the limitations in the total number of PPH requests that will be accepted by the Brazilian PTO each year, and that can be filed by each applicant per month, we strongly recommend our clients and colleagues to act fast to benefit the most from the agreement.
In this challenging period, it’s important to emphasize that the Brazilian PTO maintains its operational activities remotely, in order to lessen the impacts of the pandemic. And our remote access technology is in place and functioning seamlessly, so our firm is in a fortunate position of being able to conduct business remotely and will continue working with the BPTO towards reducing the backlog in Brazil.
Please contact us if you need any clarification or additional information.