27/01/2014
On 6th January 2014, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) joined the Global Patent Prosecution Highway (GPPH). The GPPH allows an applicant for a UK patent to request accelerated examination of their UK application, based on a favourable examination result received from any of the other 16 participating patent offices, including: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Nordic (NPI), Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the USA.
Previously, the UK IPO had bilateral PPH arrangements with Canada, Korea, Japan, the USA, Germany, and Singapore. Joining the global PPH has therefore greatly increased the number of offices on the basis of which favourable result may be used for the request. More information is available here.
Accelerated Examination: Other Routes
PPH or GPPH is not the only way of accelerating examination in the UK and other options are discussed in our earlier post.
Examination Timeline
For all published patent applications, the UK IPO’s Examination report date service (available via their website here) indicates when the first examination report is likely to issue.
This article is for general information only. Its content is not a statement of the law on any subject and does not constitute advice. Please contact Reddie & Grose LLP for advice before taking before any action in reliance on it.
