Korean companies will be able to obtain local patents in the United States and Japan in as little as three months.
On the 31st, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) announced that starting from the 1st of next month, it will implement the ‘PPH Improvement Policy,’ which sets the average processing time for each examination stage of Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) applications in cooperation with the United States and Japan to three months.
Conceptual diagram of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) system operation. Provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office
According to the improvement policy, the priority examination under PPH between Korea and the United States and Japan will be expedited from within four months to within three months for the issuance of the first office action. Additionally, the period for issuing the next office action after the applicant submits a response, which previously had no set regulation, will now be set at three months.
Through this, PPH applicants filing in Korea, the United States, and Japan are expected to complete patent registration within three months after the priority examination decision at the earliest.
PPH is a type of international cooperation program that allows applications recognized by one country’s patent office to be examined quickly by another country’s patent office.
Last year, the United States and Japan decided to implement the ‘PPH Improvement Policy’ first. In June, KIPO signed a deepened cooperation memorandum of understanding (MOU) in the intellectual property field with the United States, participating in the ‘PPH Improvement Policy’ between the United States and Japan to ensure equal services are provided among the three countries based on reciprocity.
Currently, the five advanced patent countries (Korea, the United States, Japan, China, and the European Union) are continuing discussions on the ‘PPH Improvement Policy’ to increase predictability regarding the timing of PPH application examinations.
If several countries join the ‘PPH Improvement Policy’ in addition to Korea, the United States, and Japan, global companies will find it easier to predict the timing of patent examinations in each country.
Furthermore, companies will be able to systematically manage their intellectual property and actively pursue entry into the global market, the patent office explained.
Lee In-sil, Commissioner of KIPO, said, “The improvement policy provides foreign companies entering Korea with an accurate expected period until patent registration, building trust, and these benefits will be directly applied to Korean companies filing in the United States and Japan. KIPO will continue to strengthen international cooperation in the patent field to support domestic companies’ entry into the global market.”
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