On January 01, 2023, a new cycle of requests to participate in the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Program began.
The PPH program is a bilateral co-operation agreement between the Brazilian PTO and other Patent Offices in the world (such as, USPTO, EPO, JPO, etc.) which has shown very promising results regarding the reduction of the examination time of Brazilian patent applications.
It is important to highlight that the subject matter claimed into the PPH request should be equal to or more restricted than that allowed/granted by the respective foreign PTO, being prohibited the inclusion of a subject matter for which the foreign PTO did not perform search and/or technical examination.
In 2022, the annual limit of 800 requests was reached in September, and the average time for having an allowance decision under the PPH program was of 6 months. The following conditions must be observed:
Conditions:
• 800 requests per year;
• 1 PPH request per week by each Applicant;
• 250 PPH requests per IPC section per year;
• 100 requests per year based on the PCT patentability report.
Due to the success of the program and the restricted number of requests that can be included, we strongly recommend to be ready for submitting PPH requests as soon as possible.