You can use glyphtounicode. Differently to cmap it will work with virtual fonts too.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\input{glyphtounicode.tex}
\pdfgentounicode=1
\pdfglyphtounicode{less}{3008}
\pdfglyphtounicode{greater}{3009}

\begin{document}

< >

\end{document}

If you compile with pdflatex you can copy the brackets e.g. to notepad. This will work fine, but in an ascii editor (e.g. winedt) the result is not correct.

You can use glyphtounicode. Differently to cmap it will work with virtual fonts too.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\input{glyphtounicode.tex}
\pdfgentounicode=1
\pdfglyphtounicode{less}{3008}
\pdfglyphtounicode{greater}{3009}

\begin{document}

< >

\end{document}

If you compile with pdflatex you can copy the brackets e.g. to notepad. This will work fine, but in an ascii editor (e.g. winedt) the result is not correct.

Edit. I just remembered: Another possibility is accsupp. It work with pdftex, luatex + xetex:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{accsupp}
\begin{document}
\BeginAccSupp{method=hex,unicode,ActualText=3008}%
angleleft%
\EndAccSupp{}%

\end{document}