In the nineties, the Brazilian Supreme Court introduced a minimum protection period for patents – the sole paragraph of Article 40.
Article 40. A utility patent will have a term of 20 (twenty) years and a utility model patent term of 15 (fifteen) years, counted from the filing date.
Sole. The term will not be less than 10 (ten) years for utility patents and 7 (seven) years for utility model patents, counted from grant, except when the BRPTO is barred from proceeding with the substantive examination of the application, due to proven pending judicial decision or for reasons of “force majeure”.