During the 10th meeting of the UK-Brazil Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO), which took place March 27-29, 2018, the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO) and its British counterpart (UKIPO) signed a pilot agreement for a patent prosecution highway (PPH).
This program aims to accelerate the patent prosecution procedure: a patent application granted in the BPTO will be eligible for an expedited procedure at the UKIPO, and vice-versa.
The PPH agreement, which is set to go into effect by the end of September, foresees that up to 100 patent applications per year might go through expedited analysis. Usually, PPH agreements have a limited scope of application concerning the types of patent applications that are able to benefit from the program, but the BPTO and UKIPO have still not decided on this matter.
The BPTO. has been implementing PPH agreements with several jurisdictions in recent years in an effort to reduce its backlog. It expects significant improvement on patent application analysis through this procedure with the UKIPO as well. Currently, there are five PPH agreements in force in Brazil: with the USA, Japan, China, the European Union and with the Latin American countries that compose the PROSUR group.
We will keep you updated on the status of the Brazil-UK PPH agreement. For more information on patents and other IP rights, do not hesitate to contact us.