Sweden and China make new Patent Prosecution Highway agreement
Effective 1 July 2014 the PRV (Sweden) and the SIPO (China) started a new PPH-agreement thus offering especially our Swedish clients a new way of speeding up examination of patent applications in China by requesting that the SIPO use the search and examination results of the PRV in treating an analogous patent application. The PPH agreement between the PRV and the SIPO applies to both national and PCT work products.
Meanwhile, the SIPO has been even more active by also signing PPH agreements with the patent offices of the UK and Iceland.
The PPH-network keeps expanding
Furthermore, the PPH-network continuously keeps expanding as new intellectual property offices take interest in making PPH-agreements. The most recent additions count the Intellectual Property Offices of countries such as Indonesia, Poland and Nicaragua as well as the Eurasian patent office (EAPO). In total the PPH network now counts the intellectual property offices of 32 countries and regions.
The complete overview of existing and working PPH agreements at the time of writing can be seen on the graphic below, courtesy of the PPH web-page compiled by the Japanese Patent Office, JPO:
Troels Peter Rørdam, European Patent Attorney & Certified Danish Patent Agent