Paths through the patenting forest
The rules and regulations on IP have a certain international uniformity. It is true that in several countries the main patentability requirements are almost the same due to international agreements such as the TRIPS Agreement. However, even though there is great similarity between the main patentability requirements, each country has its own specific rules, which can be very different compared to those of the rest of the world.
In this context, Brazil also has its own regulations, which may cause some confusion, especially to practitioners and applicants that are more used to working on the US patent system. Therefore, this article will focus on clarifying and briefly explaining some frequently problematic and other advantageous points of Brazilian practice.
Expedited examination
The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (INPI) has been struggling for a long time with a backlog. There are a lot of patent applications waiting to be examined and the INPI claims that it does not have enough examiners or resources to be able to overcome the backlog in a short time. Currently, a patent application can take around seven to ten years (on average) to be granted.
As a way to minimise the backlog of some technical areas, the INPI has launched several examination acceleration programmes, which include:
