The heads of the two offices signed a deal to create a PPH between the two countries in October. SIPO launched its first PPH on November 1 with the JPO. It has since begun a pilot Paris Route and Patent Cooperation Treaty PPH with the USPTO that will run until November 30 2012.
The deal between SIPO and Germany’s DPMA will allows a patent applicant in one country to request expedited examination in the other, based on examination of a corresponding application in the other patent office where at least one claim has been allowed.
Last month the heads of the USPTO and the EPO disagreed over the use of PPHs.
At a conference in Brussels last month, David Kappos pledged to expand the USPTO’s network of patent prosecution highways to cut pendency and backlogs. But EPO president Benoît Battistelli told Managing IP that his office would not sign new PPH pilot projects before there have been improvements to the PCT, the WIPO-led system that allows inventors to file a single application in one language and seek protection in more than 140 countries.
