The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has announced a new Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot project between CIPO and the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of the People's Republic of China which will commence on September 1, 2013, for a period of two years. This agreement is similar to CIPO's other PPH agreements. The PPH allows a patent applicant to request the CIPO for accelerated examination of a patent application that meets certain criteria to be advanced out of turn for examination if there is at least one corresponding application in a foreign patent office that Canada has a PPH program with that has one or more claims that were found to be allowable.
In addition to the PPH pilot project, a Memorandum of Understanding which enhances cooperation between the two offices was signed on May 31, 2013. As a result of this enhanced cooperation, CIPO examiners will now have access to China's Traditional Chinese Medicine Database
See the link below for further information:
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr03658.html
By
Kay Palmer
