Brazilian business leaders who attended a recent IP event hosted by the Confederation of National Industries in São Paulo, agreed that it is necessary to improve the Brazilian PTO's infrastructure by increasing the number of examiners and by investing in technology. This measure is crucial for reducing the existing patent backlog at the Brazilian PTO. The main topic of discussion at the recent event was evaluating the possibility of having the Brazilian PTO become a member to the Patent Prosecution Highway Programm which already has approximately 33 member countries.
Basically The Global Patent Prosecution Highway (GPPH ) pilot will allow patent applicants to request accelerated examination at any of the offices involved in the pilot if their claims have been found to be acceptable by any of the other offices involved in the pilot.
The Confederation of local Industries support the adoption of PPH Agreement but it would appear that the PTO's motives for not having yet joined the PPH Pilot is that the PPH will not resolve the backlog at the outset simply because there would not be enough patent examiners to cope with the avalanche of expedited examination cases. Bottom line is that the PTO needs to increase substantially the number of examiners first.
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