By Jason Derry --
In accordance with its 21st Century Strategic Plan, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had previously partnered with two foreign patent offices on a Patent Prosecution Highway pilot program (PPH). The first PPH began in July 2006 with the Japanese Patent Office, and the second PPH began on September 4, 2007 with the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO). Earlier this week, the USPTO announced that it will initiate PPH pilot programs with the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), both starting January 28, 2008 and ending January 28, 2009.
The objective of the PPH is to share results of searches in order to make examination more efficient. The PPH allows an application that has allowable/patentable claims as determined in the Office of first filing (OFF) to have a corresponding application in the Office of second filing (OSF) to be examined despite its place in the examination queue, and give the OSF access to the search and examination results from the OFF. Thus, the applicant can enjoy accelerated examination in the OSF, which is based on the art and examination already dealt with in the OFF.
Details regarding the eligibility of applications and examination procedures can be found here for the PPH with the CIPO, and here for the PPH with the KIPO.
In addition, the PPH with the UK IPO was revised to permit participation of certain applications based on PCT filings that do not contain a priority claim, and to require that a request for PPH participation and the requisite documents be filed electronically via the EFS-Web. Further details on this modification are available here.
For additional information of this and other related topics, please see:
- "USPTO and JPO to Implement Patent Prosecution Highway on Full-Time Basis," December 27, 2007
- "USPTO and UK IPO to Collaborate on Patent Prosecution Highway," September 14, 2007
- "Patent Prosecution Highway Pilot Program to Be Extended," June 28, 2007
Jason Derry, Ph.D., who graduated with honors from DePaul University College of Law, is a molecular biologist and founding author of Patent Docs.
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