India inks PPH agreement with Japan
India has adopted the Patent Prosecution Highway ( PPH) programme, under which it has inked its first agreement with Japan’s patent office.
In an announcement on Wednesday, November 20, India’s government said the India Patent Office’s agreement with Japan will initially run as a three-year pilot scheme.
The World Intellectual Property Organization’s Patent Prosecution Highway is a network of agreement between various patent offices allowing applications to accelerate prosecution in one office using positive examination results from another office.
Japan first adopted the programme on November 5, when it announced that it had signed an agreement with the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property, commencing on January 1, 2020.
Under India’s pilot programme, the country’s patent office may receive patent applications from Japan, but only in certain specified, technical fields. This includes applications related to electronics, computer science, information technology, physics, automobiles and textiles.
It said the Japan Patent Office will receive Indian patent applications in all fields of technology.
India said it expects the PPH programme will benefit its IP office by reducing the pendency time of patent applications, as well as improving the quality of patent search and examination results.
It is also “an opportunity for Indian inventors to get accelerated examination of their patent applications in Japan”, the government said.
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