The Patent Prosecution Highway, a set of initiatives for providing accelerated patent prosecution procedures by sharing information between some patent offices. On November 1st 2011, SIPO launched the first pilot PPH program. Up to now, SIPO has reached cooperation with 16 patent offices from Japan, USA, South Korea, Canada etc. A network for PPH cooperation has been developed.

According to a representative from SIPO, SIPO has expended great energy to accelerate PPH cooperation since the pilot program began. Right now, applicants from China can submit PPH request to SIPO's 15 cooperators. From this July 1st, PPH cooperation between SIPO and UKIPO will be effective.

According to this representative, as of the end of 2013, Chinese applicants have submitted 836 PPH requests overseas, 205 of which are regular requests, 631 are PCT-PPH requests. SIPO has accepted 5,602 PPH requests in total, 4,386 of which are regular requests, 1,216 are PCT-PPH requests.

On January 2014, SIPO, European Patent Office, United States Patent and Trademark Office , Japan Patent Office, Korean Intellectual Property Office jointly launched a PPH cooperation program. Under the agreement framework, patent prosecution conclusions are mutually recognized.

"Understandings of PPH projects will be upgraded each two years. Without a doubt, this pilot program enables to fast-track patent examination procedures for PCT applications and it also permits be each participating patent office to be benefit from the work previously done by the other patent offices.

(China IP News)

2014-04-18

2014-04-18