Still Under Construction: The Patent Prosecution Highway And The Triway: Are These The Roads To A World Patent Office?

摘要

The US Patent Office (USPTO) is currently partnering with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), and the UK Patent Office (UKPO), on a so-called Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) in order to leverage accelerated examination procedures already available in these patent offices. As illustrated in Figure 1, the PPH enables an applicant whose patent claims have been determined to be allowable in the patent office of first filing (the First Patent Office) to have a corresponding application filed in the office of second filing (the Second Patent Office) advanced out of turn for examination allowing the Second Patent Office to exploit the search and examination results of the First Patent Office.