IPO-JPO Bilateral Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program – Acceptance Of Requests For Second Year

11th December, 2020 - 10:59 am Categories: Legal Issues 0 Comments

A Bilateral Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program was initiated between the Indian Patent Office (IPO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) on December 5, 2019. In the first year of pilot program implementation, the IPO accepted applications in several rounds throughout the year (December 2019, March 2020, August 2020), which ended with last round of requests for 5 pending slots that were accepted from November 02, 2020.

To intimate about the commencement of second year of the pilot program, a recent notification was issued by the Patent Office, according to which IPO has started accepting PPH requests from 7th December 2020 through Form 5-1 application under Chapter 5 of PPH Guidelines. In accordance with the notification, the number of PPH requests will be limited to 100, as similar to the first year, which will be accepted on a first come first serve basis.

In lines with the original PPH guidelines, the notification states regarding provision for rectification of defects after application of PPH request that would give a time period of 30 days to the Applicants for defect correction. Further, for better clarity, the notification emphasizes on application of form 18A (for expedited examination) only after the acceptance of PPH request by IPO, wherein any decision on the request being accepted, rejected or defect correction will be notified to the Applicant/Authorized agent via email as well as message on e-filing portal. The guidelines for the PPH program have been published on the website of Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks and can be accessed here.

Author: Hyacintha R. Lobo, a senior patent associate at Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorneys.  In case of any queries please contact/write back to us at hyacintha@iiprd.com.