In Brazil, the National Institute of Intellectual Property (INPI) has issued statement No. 2762 informing that, as of January 1st, 2024, the queue for cases that are going to be examined will depend on the date examination is requested, rather than the filing date, as is the current practice.
According to Brazilian law, once the patent application is filed, the applicant has up to 36 months to request examination, and file voluntary amendments to the claims with such request; once examination was requested, the application entered the queue based on its filing date. With this amendment, the INPI seeks to facilitate prosecution, by encouraging applicants to speed up the examination request, which will directly impact the actual issuance of the first office action.
In addition, the INPI has pointed out that this procedure also aims to improve the patent system in Brazil, aligning it with international practices, and increasing the Applicant’s control over the time it takes for their patent application to be examined.
