In the latest chapter regarding the pilot project of shared priority examination, the Patent Prosecution Highway ("PPH"), the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office ("BPTO") published in the Official Industrial Property Bulletin No. 2485, dated August 21, 2018, Resolution No. 223, which sets forth the regulation of the program signed with the Danish Patent and Trademark Office - DKPTO.

Representing another major advance in the PPH project, as of September 1, 2018, when Resolution No. 223 comes into force, the applicant of a patent application in Brazil belonging to a patent family whose older application has been filed in the DKPTO may enjoy this benefit, provided that other requirements as described in the Resolution are complied with.

One of the key requirements (and limitations) for the applicant to enjoy this benefit established with the Danish Patent Office is for the subject matter of the invention under patent application to be related to the engineering, lighting, heating, weapons and explosives fields.

The agreement between BPTO and the DKPTO stipulated a limit of 200 cases to be allowed to participate in the project and a term of 2 years for its validity, from September 1, 2018 to August 31, 2020.

The PPH program signed between BPTO and several other patent offices - the most recent being the DKPTO - aims to reduce the huge backlog of applications awaiting examination and the severe delay of the decisions, as well as to help patent applicants obtain patent rights with greater legal certainty.

The project has proved to be effective in the speed of obtaining a decision in the national patent application process, since of the total number of cases considered eligible to participate in the program, those that received a favourable decision obtained the granting of the patent rights within about one year from the date of the request to participate in the program.

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