On January 7, 2019, the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO) officially approved, through Resolution No. 232/2019, the industrial design manual, consolidating the guidelines and procedures related to the examination of applications for registration of industrial designs.
Among the covered topics, the BPTO expressed its view relating to the priority right and protection of parts of object. According to the manual, the BPTO will not accept an industrial design application related to parts of object that do not separately subsist, which cannot be detached without compromising the whole of the configuration, and provided that the object is fully disclosed. In this case, the drawings must illustrate the complete configuration of the object in continuous lines.
Regarding the maintenance of the priority right, the BPTO clarifies that if the object has elements not claimed in unionist priority, i.e. represented by dashed lines, these should be incorporated into the claim of the object in the national application by filling in the said dashed lines, configuring an object that subsists per se.
The manual will enter in force as from March 9, 2019 and is available (in Portuguese) at http://www.inpi.gov.br/noticias/manual-de-desenhos-industriais-consolida-procedimentos-de-exame/view.
If you need further information, please contact us at designs@murtagoyanes.com.br.