According to the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), since SIPO and Japan Patent Office (JPO) launched the PPH pilot program on November 1st, 2011, a total of 19 PPH pilot programs between SIPO and foreign IP administrations have been started.
The PPH programs have proved to be of high efficiency and quality in patent examination in by work-sharing and cooperation between IP offices of different countries. For example, from July to December in 2013, the average period to handle the national phase of a PCT application before the USPTO was 29 months; however the average period to handle PCT application under PPH pilot program (PCT-PPH) was 14.1months. While the average period to handle the national phase of a PCT application before JPO was 22 months the average period to handle the PCT-PPH was only 4.1 months.
The PPH program is also welcomed by Chinese enterprises. Latest statistics from SIPO showed that as of the end of 2013, Chinese applicants have filed 825 PPH requests via PPH pilot programs, of which 197 are normal PPH and 628 are PCT－PPH.
