Recently, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) and the China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) signed a Statement of Intent on Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program.
According to SIPO, over 600, 000 patent application for inventions were received in the past 10 months, an increase of 23% as compared with the previous year. Due to the continuous growth of patent applications, SIPO has been working with other IP offices in order to maintain the high quality and efficiency of patent applications and meanwhile reduce costs for patent applicants. PPH pilot programs have been the major work-sharing platform to improve the efficiency and quality. As one of the main applicants in China, British enterprises already filed a total of 24,221 patent applications before SIPO.
According to the statement, the PPH pilot programs will start on July 1, 2014.
