ny independent person or company can apply for a patent request.

The Patent Letter is an ownership title with a validity term determined by the State, which grants the owner all the invention rights, including amendments or improvements to the creation.

A patent request is held confidential by INPI for 18 months from the date of application, after which INPI will publish the application for public disclosure. From this moment on, third parties interested in the matter will be able to obtain copies of the descriptive report of the invention in order to present subsidies for the examination, which will comprise future oppositions to the process.

The request will be submitted to Technical Examination within legal terms, so that INPI can analyze the text and eventual oppositions. With the examination conclusion, the acceptance decision or technical requirements will be made known. Complying with required formalities (within a 90-day term) the application will be approved or denied, with the necessary payment of the corresponding taxes related to the acceptance or an eventual appeal against a negative decision.

From the application date of any patent request it will be subject to the payment of certain ANNUITIES in order to guarantee its maintenance.

The processing term of a patent application can vary, depending on the owner himself, as the Law allows him to apply for the anticipation of the publishing date and technical examination, in order to hasten the period of confidentiality and analysis of each case.

The Patent of Invention (PI) granted for a period of 20 years, without extensions, from the date of application, protects every "absolute" novelty, susceptible of industrial use.

The Amendment Certificate (CA) is valid for the same period as the main patent, independently of its application date and will expire together with the patent. It is used to protect supplements to the initial request.

The Utility Model (MU) granted for a period of 15 years, without extensions, from the date of application, protects all the improvements to inventions previously patented by the owner or third parties.

Industrial Design (DI) previously considered similar as a patent procedure, is now subject to special treatment by Law 9279/97. Industrial Design is every plastic form of an object or the ornamental set of lines and colors applied to a product, which results into a new original external visual aspect. It will refer to one object only, with a certain number of variations within the same feature and should allow its manufacturing in an industrial scale.

In some cases, the DI has a visual aspect so differentiated and unique that it functions as a true trademark and can, in such cases, be registered as a "three-dimensional trademark". Considering that as a trademark the extension of the registration can be indefinite, this represents an additional protection possibility for the same product on a more comprehensive basis.

The process for Industrial Design is different from the previous cases, because it does not have a confidentiality period, because it is not subject to a formal requirements and does not undergo the Technical Examination (except when requested by the owner at any time). It is granted for 10 years and can be extended for equal periods of 5 years each, up to a total of 25 years.