In November, the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Committee (CCJC) of the House of Representatives approved the opinion of Deputy Felipe Franceschini, rapporteur of PL 2.334/2019, authored by Deputy Marcos Pereira, who intends to allow the celebration of agreements or partnerships by the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office – BPTO. The project, which has the support of ABPI, is in line with the plan that is being managed by the entity’s Patent Office (DIRPA), to outsource patent exams, whose pilot should start in the second half of next year.
The plan was announced by the BPTO’s Patent Director Liane Lage (photo), on December 3rd, at Casa do Saber, in Rio de Janeiro, at the event “Advances and Prospects in the processing of patent applications”, promoted by ABPI, and confirmed by BPTO president Claudio Furtado at the entity’s year-end lunch. In order to implement the patent exam outsourcing plan, the BPTO is using a government program that will allow the transit of employees from one area to another between Government agencies.
The idea is to use staff from other federal agencies with high technical skills in Information Technology (IT) to support the program and start the pilot in the second half of next year. Inspired by the JPO model, from the Japanese patent office, the exam outsourcing plan would be fully operational within two years. The measure, along with others being created at the BPTO, is part of the 2020 strategic plan, to be announced next week.
With just over 13,000 patent applications decided, 33,000 under review, and about 74,000 eligible for the first examination, the BPTO is getting closer to the goal of reducing the patent backlog by 80% by August 2021. Today there are around 137,000 applications pending exams. “The BPTO will be the pillar of innovation in Brazil”, said Liane Lage.
