EPO President Benoît Battistelli and Dato’ Shamsiah Kamaruddin, Director General of the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia, and with Josephine Santiago, Director General of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines signed the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) agreement on October 2016. Based on that agreement, now EPO launched the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program with the patent offices of Malaysia and the Philippines on 1st JULY 2017. This will allow sharing and increasing the patent applications.
EPO President Battistelli said that the fast-track procedure allows companies and inventors from Europe, Malaysia and Philippines to get patents more quickly and efficiently, boosting business and innovation in both regions. It covers PCT and national work products under PPH program and will each run for an initial period of three years starting 1 July 2017.
EPO already functioning Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program with largest IP offices like China, Japan, Korea, US and also with the national patent offices of Australia, Canada, Colombia, Israel, Mexico, Russia and Singapore.
The Author is a Patent Specialist from MR Technollect Solutions (www.MRTechnollect.com)