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[03.Jan.11] Patents
– Applications and grants increased in 2010
Source: INPI [adapted]
With the boost in productivity, the Brazilian
Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) granted 3.620
patents in 2010. The accumulated growth is of 30% in
comparison with 2006’s results. In relation only
with the previous year, there was an increase of 14.8%.
As regards patent applications, the Institute’s
estimative is to overcome the 30 thousand applications
filed in 2010.
Due to all the work put in to meet the
ever growing demand, the IPNI reduced in one year the
time taken for a patent to grant in Brazil. In average,
a patent is currently taking 8.3 years to grant, against
9.3 years in 2009. The goal is to reach the year of
2014 examining 2010’s applications, further reducing
the average grant time in 4 years.
The improvements above are basically
due to three lines of action: hiring of personnel, electronic
processing of patent applications and internal procedures
revision.
As regards the first, the INPI has been
periodically opening new positions in order to hire
skilled examiners with at least a post-graduate degree
in a given technical area. From 112 examiners in 2005,
the number grew to 273 in 2010. The goal is to continue
hiring in order to reach a total of 600 examiners. In
respect of information technology, the Institute started
to employ, as of last December, the Eptos system, which
will enable the electronic processing of all applications.
It is already in its pilot phase internally and on-line
filing should be available for external users as soon
as 2012. At last, the revision of procedures is involving,
for instance, the possibility of preliminary search
and opinion for patent applications filed in Brazil
following the PCT procedures. This and other measures
will surely contribute to accelerate the INPI’s
patent processing.
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