The Brazilian PTO published on September 4, 2018, the Rule #224/2018 implementing the second phase of PPH Pilot program with the National Institute of Industrial Property of Chile (INAPI), the National Institute of Industrial Property of Argentina (INPI-AR), the Colombian Superintendence of lndustry and Commerce (SIC), the Ecuadorian Institute of Intellectual Property (IEPI),the National Directorate of Intellectual Property (DINAPI), the Peruvian Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) and the National Institute of Industrial Property of Uruguay (NCPA), named PPH PROSUL Pilot Project.
To be accepted on the PROSUL PPH Pilot Program, the application must:
i) Have been filed for more than 18 months or published by the WIPO (when applicable);
ii) Have the corresponding technical exam duly paid;
iii) Have to belong to patent families whose earliest application has been filed at a Patent Office from any of PROSUL countries or, in case of a PCT application, any of these offices was the receiving office.
iv) Have the favorable opinion from any of the PROSUL Institutes, clearly indicating which claims to meet the requirements of novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability.
In the case of divided patent applications, they must request priority procedure to all of them.
The participation of the application in the PROSUL PPH Pilot Program shall be requested by any or all the applicants.
The priority examination request can be filed up to June 30, 2019.
Amongst other documents requested by Rule #224/2018, the applicant must submit with the application, documents proving that the application meets the requirements and a table including the correspondences between the BR application claims and the PROSUL allowed claims and a copy of non-patentary prior art documents.
The program will be extended until all eligible applications are decided.
The BPTO will evaluate the applications according to its request date, and applications that do not meet the requirements will either be given the opportunity to correct any irregularity, case in which the BPTO will issue an office action which must be replied to within 60 days, or be denied participation in the PPH Pilot Program, case in which it will return to the regular line of examination.
The original Portuguese version of Rule #224/2018 is available here