The new Global Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot is the next step in an effort to harmonize and simplify the PPH platform. The pilot program launched on January 6, 2014, features a single-form and common set of guidelines by all the participating offices. The current list of participating offices includes Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Nordic Patent Institute. It is expected that other offices that already participate in the PPH or PPH 2.0 programs will join Global PPH as results from the pilot become available. Under Global PPH, any earlier, positive results by any of these offices are now available as a basis for PPH at another participating office, so long as the applications share a common earliest date and support the claimed subject matter. Additional information, including the most up-to-date list of participating offices, is available at http://www.jpo.go.jp/ppph-portal/globalpph.htm. The PPH was discussed in the November 2013 edition of Full Disclosure here.
This article previously appeared in Full Disclosure Patent Prosecution Update, January 2014.
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