BPTO publishes its 2026 Action Plan

BPTO publishes its 2026 Action Plan

The Brazilian Institute of Industrial Property (BPTO) published, on February 3, its 2026 Action Plan. The document presents the institutional planning of the authority, structured into nine Strategic Objectives aimed at operational efficiency and the modernization of the BPTO, including initiatives of digital transformation, institutional sustainability, people management and strengthening of governance. These objectives unfold into 31 targets and 26 strategic projects, accompanied by indicators that allow monitoring of their execution throughout the year. Among them, Strategic Objective 1 (SO1) stands out, aimed at improving the quality and agility in the granting and registration of industrial property rights, which brings together 13 indicators related to the time of technical examination of industrial property applications.

With regard to patent applications, data from the BPTO indicate a continuous reduction in the time to reach a decision in substantive examination between 2022 and 2025, reflecting, according to the Office, greater efficiency in service delivery. In 2025, the time counted from the filing date was 4.3 years, with a target of 3.5 years for 2026. For prioritized examination requests, after an increase observed from 2023 onwards, there was a significant reduction in 2025, reaching 6.3 months for the time to a decision in the substantive examination of prioritized patent applications, counted from the request for prioritization, with expectations of a further decrease to 6 months in 2026.

For trademarks, in 2025, the time to a decision in the substantive examination of trademark registration applications without opposition was 18.3 months. Examination times for non-opposed trademark applications have increased year after year in recent years. However, the BPTO reports that the target for 2026 is 10 months, with an expected reduction of 8.3 months in examination time compared to 2025. In cases involving opposition, the time to a decision in substantive examination in 2025 was 34.4 months. The expectation for 2026 is that this time will be around 36 months. The time to decision for trademarks with opposition increased significantly from 2024 onwards, with a continuous rise in 2025 and in 2026 (target). According to the BPTO, for both trademark registration applications with opposition and those without opposition, the increase is due to the significant growth in the number of filings, exceeding the BPTO’s examination capacity, even after the incorporation of examiners in 2024 and 2025. The Office considers that initiatives aimed at increasing productivity—especially those incorporating the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in trademark examination—have the potential to promote a better balance between demand and production capacity in the medium and long term.

With regard to decision times for appeals and administrative nullity proceedings of trademarks, as from 2024 the count began to consider the period between the filing date of the petition and the publication of the final decision in the Industrial Property Gazette (RPI). In 2025, appeals presented a decision time of 19 months, with a target of 18 months for 2026, while nullities recorded 30 months in 2025, with a target set at 35 months for 2026.

Regarding industrial design registration applications, the decision time of the technical examination in 2025 was 9.1 months, with an expected increase to 9.5 months in 2026. Such scenario results from the impact observed in 2024, when the execution of BPTO activities was affected by the concentration of efforts on the strategic project IPAS-DI, aimed at automation of the industrial design workflow. In 2025, in addition to maintaining operational routines, team training was carried out for the implementation of the new system, as well as database cleansing, measures which, according to the authority, are indispensable for consolidating the improvements and achieving efficiency gains in subsequent periods.

As in trademarks, the report presented the decision times for appeals and administrative nullity proceedings of industrial designs, highlighting that, in this case, the count considers the full interval between the notification of the institution of the nullity proceeding or of the appeal and the publication of the decision order in the Industrial Property Gazette (RPI). In 2024, the decision time for appeals was 8 months, while in 2025 it reached 27.5 months, with a target of 6 months for 2026. Nullity proceedings recorded 15 months in 2025, with a target of 14 months for 2026. The increase in 2025 was attributed by the BPTO to the database cleansing.

The report also presents a graph relating to the final decision time of geographical indication registration applications and to the average decision time of notified technology contract recordals. For the achievement of Strategic Objective 1, the BPTO foresees the adoption of technological solutions — such as artificial intelligence tools and automation of the patent workflow — in addition to institutional initiatives, including the revision of the Industrial Property Law, focusing on the approval of Bill No. 2,210/2022, and the strengthening of technical cooperation with the intellectual property office of China (CNIPA).

The other strategic objectives also have defined indicators, projects and actions, with emphasis on objectives II and III. Objective II addresses the promotion of the strategic use of industrial property (IP), and its projects include the launch of a lato sensu postgraduate course in IP, the availability of courses in the field on governmental platforms and the development of tools for valuation of IP assets.

Objective III seeks to consolidate Brazil’s international insertion in the industrial property system through, for example, the implementation of IP cooperation projects with Latin America and the Caribbean and the carrying out of a feasibility study for enhanced cooperation in patent examination within the scope of BRICS, with a view to harmonization of practices and to increasing the agility and quality of patent application examination.

Finally, the planning also incorporates Transversal Agendas aimed at the promotion of Gender, Diversity and Inclusion, internally and in relation to society, as well as Environmental Sustainability, focusing on the integration of practices and on the delivery of concrete actions aimed at environmental preservation and the promotion of the bioeconomy.

The BPTO’s 2026 Action Plan can be accessed at the following link: BPTO’s 2026 Action Plan

Note: For quick release, this English version is provided by automated translation without human review.