Cambodia signs many new bilateral agreements with major patent offices worldwide
Over the past decade, Cambodia has started rising in the South East Asia region as one of the fastest-growing countries. This is due to the fact that Cambodia has signed many new bilateral agreements with major patent offices worldwide, providing devices and possibilities for mutual development.
Collaboration with South Korea
The collaboration with South Korea (Effective 1st November 2019) gives Cambodia access to an accelerated patent decision under the Patent Recognition Program (PRP).
With this program, applicants can have the opportunity to reach a faster decision on their patent application if the applicant has already filed their patent application in Korea and that patent application has the same priority date or filing date as the Cambodian patent application.
In addition, that Korean patent application must have already been approved and registered, and the Cambodian patent application has a filing date after 22nd January 2003.
If all of the above requirements are met, within 3 months from the date of requesting the PRP, the Cambodian Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts (MIH) will provide the applicant with an accelerated patent decision.
Collaboration with Singapore
The collaboration with Singapore (Effective July 2016) provides the applicants a re-registration of granted Singapore patents.
If the applicant has already filed and registered their patent in Singapore with the filing date on or after 11th February 2003, and at the time they file for patent registration in Cambodia, the Singapore patent is still in effect, they can have a re-registration of granted Singapore patents.
It should be noted that one of the fundamental necessities of this program is that the subject matter of the Singapore patent must be patentable under Cambodian law. This must be taken into consideration, provided that Singapore’s and Cambodia’s IP law is different, as in most other countries.
There is also no deadline for re-registration.
Collaboration with Japan
The collaboration with Japan (Effective 1st July 2016) is basically the same cooperation between South Korea and Cambodia.
If all of the requirements are met, within 3 months from the date of requesting the PRP, the Cambodian Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts (MIH) will provide the applicant with an accelerated patent decision.
Collaboration with Europe
The collaboration with Europe (Effective 1 March 2018) provides for the validation of a patent granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) in Cambodia.
To enable this, the applicant needs to file a request for validation. In addition, within 6 months from the date of publication of the European search report, he/she needs to pay in full the relevant fee.
When the European patent is granted, validation follows the usual EPO procedures.
All the necessary documents must be translated into the Khmer language (Cambodian language) and filed within 3 months from the date of publication of the European patent grant.
Collaboration with China
The collaboration with China is essentially the same as the cooperation between Japan and Cambodia.
One of the only differences is that to enable a re-registration of granted Chinese patent, the Chinese patent must have a filing date on or after 22 January 2003.
Expert opinions
With all these bilateral agreements with major patent offices worldwide, foreign patent holders will be provided with a way more accelerated experience when extending their rights to Cambodia.
David Haskel, a partner at Abacus IP in Cambodia, stated about the change in Cambodia in respect of IP in recent times: “We have seen a particularly strong uptake of the Chinese validation program – where Chinese patents can be directly converted into a Cambodian patent, without the need for substantive examination. Similarly, Cambodia is the only country in Asia to be a European Patent Validation state. These provide much quicker and cost-effective filing options, as compared to a direct application.”
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– You could see the Trademark Registration in Cambodia here.
– You could also see the Procedure of Trademark in Cambodia here.
– You could visit here to see the Required documents of filing trademark in Cambodia here.
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