Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) A Pilot Program Between JPO And Vietnam's NOIP

Overview

In the ASEAN region, Vietnam will be the sixth country that have concluded a PPH with JPO, following Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, on the basis of bilateral office agreements dated October 2015.

The PPH Pilot Program thereby will be launch on April 1, 2016 and initially, there will be a trial of 100 patent applications to test it out.

The PPH is a framework whereby a patent application whose claims have been determined to be patentable by the Office of First Filing (OFF) (an earlier examination), through a simple procedure upon request from an applicant, to undergo an accelerated examination in the Office of Second Filing (OSF). In other words, through PPH, an applicant with a corresponding Japan patent may speed up examination after it is submitted to NOIP.