French and Chinese patent offices sign a PPH agreement
A Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) agreement was signed by the Chinese (CNIPA) and French (INPI) Intellectual Property Offices on April 6, 2023. Following a recent amendment to French patent law, an inventive step is now considered when evaluating French patent applications. As a result, in order to speed up search and examination, both the Chinese and French patent offices now perform an examination with comparable patentability specifications and such work product may be shared across the patent offices. This agreement represents a significant shift [...]