The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO) has once again revised the rules governing fast-track examination for patent applications in the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) sector, this time expanding limitations that had been reduced earlier.
Telecommunications-related patent applications, mostly classified under IPC H04 (Electric Communication Techniques), have been subject to a series of regulatory adjustments by the BPTO over the past year, reflecting efforts to manage a high volume of filings and examiner workload in this technology area. In December 2025, the BPTO temporarily suspended the reception of fast-track requests for H04 applications, under Ordinance No. 17/2025. In June 2026, the BPTO reopened the fast-track examination for applications under IPC H04, but capped it strictly, allowing only one prioritized examination request per applicant per monthly cycle under Ordinance No. 05/2026.
However, according to Official Gazette No. 2904, published on September 1, 2026, the BPTO issued Ordinance No. 07/2026, which revokes Ordinance No. 05/2026 and raises the monthly cap on fast-track requests for IPC H04 applications from one to three per applicant. The ordinance entered into force on the date of its publication, August 31, 2026.
The new provision reads as follows:
Art. 4. Three (3) prioritized examination requests may be filed per monthly cycle, per applicant, for patent applications classified under IPC H04.
§ 1. The quantitative limits set forth in the caput are independent of whether the respective prioritized examination requests are admitted or not, nor, in the case of PPH, of the result presented by the Office of Earlier Examination.
§ 2. The filling of available slots shall follow the order of the date and time of filing of the prioritized examination request.
§ 3. The monthly cycle comprises the period between the first and last day of each calendar month, with no extension permitted.
Requests filed in excess of the applicable monthly limit will not be admitted, and the examination will simply continue under regular prosecution rather than being penalized further. Applicants may request reimbursement of official fees paid in connection with non-admitted requests. Notably, fast-track requests already filed during the current monthly cycle under the outgoing Ordinance No. 05/2026 will count toward the new three-request limit, so applicants should review their filing calendars accordingly.
As before, certain categories of applicants remain outside the scope of this quantitative limit and may file fast-track requests for H04 applications without restriction: elderly applicants, applicants with physical or mental disabilities, applicants with serious illnesses, and startups.
This is the third regulatory shift affecting fast-track examination of telecommunications patents in Brazil within less than a year — from suspension to a single-slot cap, to a threefold expansion. For applicants with large ICT patent portfolios, the move creates a meaningful window to accelerate examination of strategically significant applications, though the BPTO’s pattern of frequent recalibration suggests that current limits should not be assumed to be permanent. Companies with pending or upcoming H04 filings in Brazil would be well advised to reassess their prioritization strategy promptly to take full advantage of the expanded limit while it remains in effect.
