As the PPH network continues to expand, the Awapatent IP Blog lets its readers stay one step ahead by keeping monitoring the new expansions and arising possibilities.
Most recently, European patent applicants are offered a new possibility of speeding up and simplifying examination of their patent applications. This possibility comes in addition to the eight existing agreements that the EPO has with the patent offices of Canada, China, Korea, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Singapore and USA.
Effective 1 July 2016, the EPO and the Australian IP office, IP AUSTRALIA, has launched a new PPH agreement. The agreement applies to both national and to PCT work products. The press release of the EPO may be found here.
To recall, for a given PPH-agreement the PPH allows for requesting accelerated examination at the one office participating in this agreement based on the search results and a set of claims accepted for grant in an analogous application at the other participating office.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that also the Peruvian and Vietnamese IP offices have entered the PPH-network. Namely, the Peruvian IP office has signed an agreement with the Spanish patent office, OEPM, and the Vietnamese IP office has signed an agreement the Japanese patent office, JPO, respectively. Thereby the total number of IP offices participating in the PPH network is 39.
Troels Peter Rørdam, European Patent Attorney & Certified Danish Patent Agent