The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has implemented a new Global Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program starting January 6, 2014. The Global PPH agreement includes partnerships with many of CIPO's current PPH partners as well as seven new IP offices.
The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) allows Applicants to significantly speed up examination of their patent applications based on the results of examination from a corresponding application at one of the PPH partner IP offices.
The new Global PPH agreement simplifies the current PPH procedure by adopting one set of qualifying requirements for all PPH partner countries. Applicants can now make a PPH request based on national or international (PCT) work products to any or all of the 16 participating intellectual property offices.
In addition to the Global PPH agreement, CIPO announced a new bilateral PPH agreement with Mexico.
With these new agreements Canada now has PPH agreements with Australia, China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Nordic Patent Institute, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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