INDIA: PPH BETWEEN INDIA AND JAPAN, NOTIFICATION FOR 9 REQUESTS RELEASED BY THE INDIAN PATENT OFFICE

On July 27, 2020, the Indian Patent Office released a notification inviting Applicants to file PPH requests; the number of requests being limited to 9. The IPO will start accepting the third round of PPH applications on a first-come-first-served basis under Chapter 5 of the PPH Guidelines from August 10, 2020. As apprised in our earlier news alert of November 2019, the Government of India had implemented a pilot patent prosecution highway (PPH) program between India and Japan, capping the number of PPH applications at 100 per year. Further, vide notification dated February 25, 2020, the IPO further called-in for additional applications as only 56 applications out of 100 were accepted as per the Guidelines, leaving request slots for 44 applications. After scrutiny of requests received in the second round, 35 requests out of the 44 were accepted by IPO while 9 requests were not found eligible as per the PPH guidelines. Accordingly, the IPO has opened up a slot for 9 PPH applications starting August 10, 2020. If you wish to file a request under IPO-JPO PPH program for any of your applications, please let us have your instructions and provide us the required documents at the earliest. The formal guidelines enlisting the requirements for filing a PPH application can be accessed here.