China joins int'l IP cooperation initiative to enhance patent prosecution processes

BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) announced this week that it will join the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Improvement Initiative, which involves cooperation between the world's five leading IP offices, namely China, the United States, Europe, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

The objective of this initiative is to establish a more predictable examination cycle. According to the CNIPA, it will this year strive for an average duration of 3 months from the grant of a PPH request to issuance of a first office action. Similarly, it will aim for an average response time from examiner to applicant of no more than 3 months.

PPH is a fast track linking patent examination duties of different countries or regions, allowing patent examination authorities to share their work to speed up patent examination.

Since the initiation of the first PPH pilot program in November 2011, the CNIPA has built PPH ties with patent examination authorities of 32 countries or regions.

The five members of the initiative are the world's five leading IP offices, known as the IP5. They together handle about 80 percent of the world's patent applications. The IP5 was set up to improve the efficiency of the examination process for patents worldwide.