Did you know? The Brazilian PTO has expedited prosecution for Brazilian industrial design applicatio
The Brazilian Patent Office faces a significant backlog in connection with the examination of patent applications as well as industrial design applications, as it is widely known. Although the BRPTO has already taken several important steps to alleviate the backlog and has adopted new procedures and byways to expedite examination, such as the implementation of the Green Patent Pilot Program (temporarily suspended) and the US-BR PPH Pilot Project, there are still some areas where the situation is particularly sensitive.
Considering especially the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016, the President of the BRPTO has enacted Resolution No. 167 of June 17, 2016, with the specific purpose of expediting the examination of Industrial Design applications that belong to the field of sporting goods.
The prospect of the Games in Rio has triggered the filing of an unusually large number of Brazilian Industrial Design applications in this specific field, which obviously have an urgent need to be prosecuted as soon as possible.
According to the terms of Resolution No. 167, a petition (solely on paper) listing all cases of interest with their corresponding numbers and filing dates must be submitted to the President of the BRPTO, up to June 30, 2016. The petition will be analyzed within 3 days from the date on which it is received at the BRPTO.
The requirements for the expedited examination established by Resolution No. 167 read as follows:
I – The object of the industrial design application must refer to a sporting good;
II – The filing date of the industrial design application must be prior to June 16, 2016.
Once the request for expedited examination is granted, the application will be forwarded to the technical division for examination, as per the provisions of Brazilian Industrial Property Law.
In case the request for expedited examination is rejected, a notice will be published in the Official Gazette to this effect, and no appeal from this decision will be accepted.
