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EXPEDITING THE INPI IN THE TECHNICAL EXAMINATION FOR GRANTING PATENTS

By Luiz Alberto Rosenstengel
10/05/2022

Brazil is a signatory to the main international patent agreements, including the Paris Union Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). In Brazil, the institution responsible for the policy and execution of patent granting activities is the National Institute of Industrial Property - INPI, currently linked to the Ministry of Economy.

Under this last agreement (PCT – internalized in Brazil through Decree 81,742 of 05/31/1978), significantly increased the number of patents applied for in Brazil, having jumped from approximately 10,000 to more than 30,0000 patent applications per year, that is, more than tripled the number of deposits. The table below (INPI site source) shows the growth in the number of deposits since 1999.

Furthermore, it is known that the world is experiencing a period of accelerated technological development that generates permanent launches of new products, justifying the patents applications. With the opening of the Brazilian economy after the 1990s, Brazil has been seen as a relevant market, which has also led to an increase in the number of national patent applications and, especially, from abroad.

All these facts previously narrated, associated with a difficulty of the BRPTO in modernizing to meet the growing demand for patents led to an extension of the term of analysis and granting patents, which once out of approximately 4 years to more than 10 years, which was called as a "backlog of patents".

The BRPTO has created the Project to Combat Backlog "aiming at a substantive reduction in the number of patent applications pending decision, in a period of 2 years". To achieve this goal, Resolutions 240 and 241 were published, which impose preliminary requirements under dispatch codes 6.22 and 6.21, respectively. Subsequently the BRPTO issued Ordinance 21 for "preliminary requirements" notified under dispatch code 6.23.

Resolution 241 and Ordinance 21 "regulate the analysis of patent application for invention pending examination, with the use of the result of previous searches carried out in Patent Offices of other countries, international or regional organizations". Thus, the BRPTO's orders with codes 6.21 and 6.23 apply to patent applications from abroad and to national applications that have been requested abroad, provided that they have already been the subject of previous searches in these official offices.

Resolution 242 "regulates the analysis of patent application pending examination, without searches for priors carried out in patent offices of other countries, international or regional organizations". Dispatch code 6.22 applies to applications for national or foreign patents that have not yet been searched for previous ones in those official offices.

For these regulations, the applicant of patent application which has formulated a preliminary requirement has a period of 90 days from the date of publication of the order to adjust his patent application or to submit a statement contesting the search report. If the requirement is not answered within the specified period, the patent application will be definitively rejected, and the administrative instance will be closed. The requirement was answered by adapting the claims to the previous ones indicated in the research report, the BRPTO will defer the patent application. Since the claims has not been considered appropriate and no arguments have been made as to the patentability requirements, the application will be rejected, and the application shall be appealed within 60 days of the rejection.

In order for the patent application could get the benefits of the preliminary requirement, it must meet the following conditions:

  • • It has not started the technical examination;
  • • It is not subject of priority examination;
  • • It has not been attacked by third parties (submission of subsidies to the technical examination);
  • • It has been filed before 31/12/2017.

Thus, the BRPTO adopts objective measures to reduce the term of patent granting, returning to practice a reasonable period for the protection of innovations and aligning Brazil with the developed countries, resulting in a clear positive indicator so that investment in patent protection in Brazil resumes its reliability, generating an effective use of the Brazilian patent system.

 

by Luiz Alberto Rosenstengel - Mechanical Engineer, Partner at Leão.

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