The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has announced the commencement of a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot programme with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA). The pilot programme commenced on 1 October 2014 and will run for a two-year period, ending on 30 September 2016. After which, IPOS and the DPMA will evaluate the results of the pilot programme to determine whether and how the programme should be fully implemented.
Under this PPH pilot programme, patent applications filed in Singapore and Germany for the same invention, can accelerate examination proceedings at either IPOS or DPMA based on the first available examination results. A particular point to note is that in order to meet the requirements for PPH and accelerated examination, at least one patent claim must have been found to be patentable in said first available examination results.
The PPH pilot programme with DPMA further cements Singapore as an IP hub in Southeast Asia and extends the list of PPH programmes that IPOS currently has with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Japan Patent Office, the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China, and the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) of the United Mexican States.