Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) between China and Japan Extended

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and Japan Patent Office (JPO) have recently reached agreement to extend the CNIPA-JPO Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot project for five years from 1 November 2023 until 31 October 2028. The relevant requirements and procedures for filing PPH requests with the two offices remain unchanged.

This PPH programme is a bilateral work-sharing initiative between the patent offices for the purpose of accelerating patent examination. An applicant who has filed a patent application with one office (first office) under the program may file a request for the expedited examination of the application with the partner office (second office) on condition that the application has at least one claim allowed by the first office.

Since the inception of the PPH pilot programme in November 2011 in China, the CNIPA has established cooperation with patent offices of 31 countries or regions on the pilot projects.