03-January-2020

Patent Prosecution Highway Between Indian and Japan is now open!

Finally, India Patent Office (IPO) has entered into PPH agreement with Japan Patent Office (JPO), thereby encouraging Japanese and Indian Inventors for speedy and quality examination of the patent applications filed thereof.

Following are the guidelines summary for the pilot run of the PPH:

• Number of cases to be allowed in first year – 100, Only 10 cases per applicant in one year allowed. As of now, all 100 requests have been allowed. 
• Request for assigning special status for expedited examination under the PPH is required to be filed online in prescribed form 5-1 under chapter 5 of the PPH guidelines
• An applicant/Authorized agent can file the request for expedited examination on Form 18A ONLY AFTER THE REQUEST FOR ASSIGNING SPECIAL STATUS FILED ON FORM PRESCRIBED IN CHAPTER 5 IS ACCEPTEDBY IPO. The decision on Acceptance/Rejection/Defect noticed shall be communicated to the Applicant/Authorized agent through email as well as message on e-filing portal.
• In case of defects in form 5-1 the applicant will be provided opportunity to rectify the defects within 30 days from the issue of notification of defects by IPO.
• Notwithstanding the above procedure, the timelines for filing a request for expedited examination shall be as prescribed under the Patents Rules, 2003.

For more details, please refer to http://www.ipindia.nic.in/writereaddata/Portal/News/591_1_PPH_Procedure_Guideline_combined_20191128_final.pdf