Our February 2002 Newsletter reported that the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) had been amended, effective May 1, 2002, to provide that it would no longer be necessary to file a Demand for International Preliminary Examination to defer the filing of national and regional stage applications to 30 months from the PCT filing date or, if claimed, the priority date. However, there were a number of countries at that time for which the change could not come into immediate effect due to a need to amend their national laws to bring them into harmony with the changes made to the PCT. Since 2002, the number of countries whose national laws are not in sync with the PCT has slowly decreased. Until recently the last major country that the intellectual property profession was looking forward to amending its national laws in this regard was Brazil.[1]

Effective May 1, 2004, Brazil no longer requires that PCT Applicants file a Demand for International Preliminary Examination as a prerequisite to entering the National Stage in Brazil at 30 months from the international filing date or, if claimed, from the priority date according to Brizilian Delegation to the 6th Session of the Working Group on the Reform of the PCT which took place in Geneva May 3 - 7, 2004. This means that for PCT applications designating Brazil for which the former 20 month deadline date for entering the National Stage in Brazil had not yet expired as of April 30, 2004, the deadline is 30 months from the international filing date or, if priority is claimed, from the priority date.

Need to learn more about how the PCT operates? Then do have a look at some of the material we have on-line, look to WIPO's website for information and/or consider attending a lecture on this topic.