NBPR to test a new, enhanced PPH framework with five national patent authorities

On 15 July 2011, the National Board of Patents and Registration (NBPR) launches a PPH pilot program with the patent offices of Japan, USA, Canada, Russia, and Spain. The pilot spans over a period of one year and it is called PPH-MOTTAINAI.

During the pilot period, patent applicants can choose from a broader variety of options to speed up the examination of their application, since they may request for accelerated examination on the basis of results not only from the office where the priority application was filed but from any office participating in the pilot.

PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway) is an agreement between two national patent authorities, offering a patent applicant a quicker and more effective way to obtain a corresponding patent with another patent office enrolled in the PPH program. The PPH also allows information exchange between patent offices, which helps to avoid duplicative examination work and ensures better patent quality.

The initiative to this pilot project was taken by the Japanese Patent Office, which also named it PPH-MOTTAINAI. The Japanese word means that something is left to waste. The purpose of the test period is therefore to stimulate the use of PPH and, if the results are positive, to make it a permanent system.