Canada has Patent Prosecution Highway ("PPH") agreements with the US patent office, Finland, Germany, Spain, Japan, Denmark and Korea. The agreements with Japan, Denmark and Korea were originally scheduled to expire at the end of September 2011 but they have been extended to September 2013, when they will be reevaluated.
The PPH agreements allow the sharing of work done by different patent offices. Where applicants have patent filings in more than one jurisdiction, requesting processing of a corresponding application under the PPH can help them to get faster allowance in other partner jurisdictions. Because it reduces duplication of work the PPH approach can also help an applicant to reduce overall costs.
Further information on the PPH programs is available on the CIPO website.
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