On April 29, 2021
International patent applications continued to grow even as the world plunged deep into the pandemic. Patent filings at the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) actually reached “the highest number ever” at 275,900 applications in 2020, an increase of 4% over the previous year. Even more remarkable given the estimated 3.5% contraction in global GDP.
Leading filers, the US and China, also showed a growth in patent applications as reported by the WIPO in March 2021. According to SeproTec’s Juan Julián León, since China has steadily risen up the ranks of the world’s top patent filers, taking over the No. 2 spot from Japan after 2016, “we have seen more organizations taking control of their patent translations not only in China, but globally, by centralizing their translation needs.”
Patents are a method for legally recognising innovation in a product or service and their growth in the Emirates is in line with the nation s own rise in the World Intellectual Property Organisation s Global Innovation Index rankings. The UAE climbed two places in the 2020 index to 34th globally and third in the Northern Africa and Western Asia region.
The UAE has signed more than ten agreements with international institutions that support intellectual property rights, including the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure and the Strasbourg Agreement on the International Patent Classification.
(MENAFN - Emirates News Agency (WAM)) ABU DHABI, 26th April, 2021 (WAM) The Ministry of Economy announced that the number of registered patents at the end of 2020 totalled 25,598 while the number of patent applications was 1,971.
On the occasion of the annual World Intellectual Property Day on 26th April, the ministry told the Emirates News Agency (WAM) that it is continuing to address the issue of counterfeit goods, noting that its Commercial Regulatory Department conducted 463 inspections and filed 98 violations in the first quarter of 2021.
The department is continuing to conduct inspection visits and responding rapidly to complaints about counterfeit goods in local markets to protect talents and innovators, the ministry added while pointing out that the number of registered trademarks from 1992 to 21st April, 2021, amounted to 269,189.
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Brazilian PTO published on December 29, 2020, Phase II (Ordinance No. 404/2020) of Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program, implementing new rules for the acceptance into the program. The ordinance is in force since January 01, 2021, and will be
valid until December 31, 2024. Phase II will follow the same criteria as phase I with the following changes:
1. an applicant can submit one PPH request every
weekly cycle (instead of the previous monthly cycle);
2. the program will allow a total of up to
600 requests per annual cycle;
3. the program will allow up to
150 requests per annual cycle related to the same Section of the International Patent Classification (IPC); and
On 1 January 2021 Ordinance 404 came into force, establishing Phase II of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Programme in Brazil. Phase II was published by the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BRPTO) in the last week of 2020 and modifies the limits and requirements for requesting participation in the PPH Programme, which are detailed below. With this new phase of the PPH Programme, the previous Resolution 252 (establishing Phase I) has been revoked.
PPH Programme
The PPH Programme allows the examination of a patent application to be expedited in Brazil whenever a corresponding patent has been granted in one of the countries participating in the programme, upon the applicant s request.