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July 07, 2017
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The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (Brazilian PTO) issued a communication in its website stating that PPH-PROSUL program is in force as from July 1, 2017 during a period of 1-year. Guidelines explaining the PPH-PROSUL procedures are also available at the Website.
Patent Prosecution Highway – PROSUL consists of a cooperative patent examination procedure covering patent applications filed in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The patent family of the application should have at least the first patent application filed in any of the participating countries and there is no limitations as to the technical field of the invention and the respective filing date of the patent application.
Any national or international favorable decisions on the patent applications (issued by any of the participating countries) can be used as the basis for the request. The patent application should have a positive examination report on patentability (novelty/inventive step and industrial applicability) in a country member in order to apply for a fast track examination (PPH) in the other country.
For Brazil, the claims of the BR patent application will have to be adapted / amended to correspond to the claims as accepted in the positive exam in the Office of Earlier Examination (OEE country). A Table showing the equivalency of BR claims with the claims as accepted by the OEE should also be filed together with the petition request PPH-PROSUL.
The Brazilian PTO usually issues a formal resolution by which the PPH program enters into force (they issued Resolutions for PPH-USA and PPH-JP) but for the PPH-PROSUL program they have not yet issued any formal regulation/resolution other than the information contained in the website.
If you consider that the above provisions apply to your patent application(s) and you are interested in participating in the PPH-PROSUL Program, we recommend that you inform earliest as possible the numbers of the patent applications to enable us to evaluate the possibility of the respective request.
If you require further information, we will be pleased to assist you.