New bilateral PPH agreements effective as of February 1, 2018

Recently, the bilateral PPH agreements have been launched by Intellectual Property Offices of China and Brazil, and also between Canadian and Taiwanese Offices. Both programs are effective as of February 1, 2018.

The representatives of the State Intellectual Property Office 0f China (SIPO) and the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (INPI) signed the PPH agreement on November 13, 2017. Brazilian Office will accept for accelerated examination only applications related to the fields of technology, packaging, measurement or chemistry, while SIPO has no strict limits in this respect. Another peculiarity of this agreement is that INPI will initially accept up to 200 requests for expedited examination of the applications under the PPH.

The agreement between the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) and the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) was executed on January 31, 2018, with an effect until January 31, 2021. As informed by CIPO, they aim to issue a first office action (allowance or substantive report) within 90 days of the PPH request. Besides, it’s worth noting that more than 30% of the PPH applications are allowed without an office action, while the same number for non-PPH national applications is only 3%.

Thus, the applicants from these four cooperating countries get a possibility to have their patent applications examined more efficiently, as the main goal of the PPH pilot program is to expedite the examination by sharing the work products between the participating patent offices.

For more information on the IP legal procedures in Brazil, China, Canada, Taiwan or any other jurisdiction, please visit our applicant’s guide. You are also welcome to get an accurate quote for any IP registration stage via our quotation system.