Brazilian IPO – weekly news roundup

 Some news and views come from the Brazilian National Intellectual Property Office (INPI).

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)

INPI’s president and the Japanese counterpart has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation for the renewal of the PPH between both offices, which will start on December 1, 2021, and lasting five years.

Until the first week of November 2021, the PPH with Japan processed 309 requests and decided 236. In average, the time of processing was 316 days.

INPI has several bilateral agreements with their counterparts. In 2020 alone, it subscribed one with Singapore (May), another with Korea (April), and in February it signed agreements with Austria and Sweden.

 What does PPH mean?

by wiredforlego

The program allows bilateral agreement between paten offices to share information such as the preliminary examination report (including the opinion --subject to conditions), as well as the opinion of the searching. This means that by sharing (Office A share to office B), the office receiving the information (office A) can re-use such data, therefore speeding the process of granting, or not, the patent. Yet, the granting of the patent remains within the control of such office (office B). In other words, it is an ‘accelerated process’.

More info click here.

 How the PPH changed at the INPI

The individualized PPH pilot projects run by INPI finished on November 30, 2019. By 1 December 2019, a new (not so new now) pilot project started, providing a standardized requirements, that is, a single resolution govern all Brazilian PPH agreements.

 PPH - capped

Ordinance no. 404 (December 21, 2020) sets up a cap for PPH requests. Article 5 of the Ordinance no. 4040, caps the applications at 600 in any field. This according to INPI, has already been reached in 2021.

 In another news…

Another cooperation that already exists, is the ‘cooperation in innovation’ between Brazil and Denmark. Due to this, they are promoting the seminar

This aims to promote “Digital Transformation in Healthcare and the Pharmaceutical Sector" (November 23rd and 24^th) promoted by INPI, the Royal Danish Embassy in Brasília and the Brazilian Network of Pharmaceutical Innovation (RBIF) Sindusfarma. The seminar includes. Among other things, digital innovations in new products, clinical trials and the search for regulatory approval.