Effective 18 January 2025, the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) have launched a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program.

This initiative allows applicants to request accelerated examination at either office based on a favorable work product established by the other office. The program will run for a period of two years until 18 January 2027.

Both the MyIPO and IPOS applications must share the same earliest filing or priority date, and all claims in the Office of Later Examination (OLE) application must sufficiently correspond to one or more claims deemed allowable/patentable in the Office of Earlier Examination (OEE) application.

Notably, a PCT application for which IPOS acted as the ISA or IPEA may form the basis of a PPH request at MyIPO. However, a Malaysian utility innovation cannot be used as the basis for a PPH request at IPOS.

Each PPH request at the OLE must be submitted with the following documents:

• A copy of all office actions issued by the OEE
• A copy of all claims determined to be allowable by the OEE
• A claim correspondence table showing how the claims in the OLE application correspond to the allowed claims in the OEE application
• References cited by the OEE examiner:
  • PPH request at IPOS: Submission of references cited by MyIPO examiners is not required; however, IPOS may require the applicant to furnish copies of cited references later.
  • PPH request at MyIPO: Submission of patent documents cited by IPOS examiners is not required; however, MyIPO may require the applicant to furnish copies of the patent documents later. Non-patent literature must always be submitted.

The launch of the PPH pilot program between MyIPO and IPOS marks a significant step in strengthening patent cooperation between the two offices.

By utilising the examination results from one office to accelerate the examination process in the other, applicants can benefit from faster and more efficient patent prosecution.

For more details on this program, please reach out to our team.