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 for Chinese applicants, who now have the second-highest foreign applicant ranking for French patent applications. It will provide them with an innovative strategy for efficiently acquiring a patent in France.
In fact, according to this PPH agreement, Chinese applicants will be allowed to ask for the INPI to expedite the approval of a second patent application, provided that the latter contains claims that are sufficiently similar to those that the CNIPA considers patentable.
French applicants will also be covered by this agreement, enabling them to expedite the issue of their Chinese patent applications where their prior French patent applications have been determined to be patentable by the INPI.
The effective date of this agreement is June 1, 2023. It should be shortly before the specifics of its implementation are made public.
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– You could see How To Register a Trademark in China here.
– You could visit here to see the Procedure of Trademark in China.
– You could visit here to check the Required documents for filing a trademark in China.
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