The Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC) and the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (INPI) have opened a public consultation to discuss their newest proposal to simplify pending patent applications in Brazil.
The draft of the normative rule under discussion provides that all patent applications and PCT national phase entry requests filed until the publication of the new simplified proceeding and still pending technical examination by the INPI will be approved within 90 days as of the publication of their compliance with the rules of the new proceeding. The simplified proceeding has expressly excluded all pharmaceutical patents, certificates of addition and divided applications from its scope. Applications filed after the entry into force of the new normative rule will not be subject to the simplified proceeding.
The discussed draft also allows applicants to opt-out of such simplified proceeding, thus requesting their patent application to be analyzed under the current procedure adopted by INPI. Furthermore, in case third parties present technical arguments against an otherwise eligible patent application, such application will also be removed from the simplified proceeding.
Contributions to the public consultation may be submitted by no later than August 31, 2017. In order to submit contributions, a specific form for this purpose available at the INPI's website must be filled out on the link below: www.inpi.gov.br/menu-servicos/patente/consultas-publicas.
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