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Monday, April 02, 2007

Pilot Measures Fostering UK/JP Co-Operation.

From the

UK-IPO website:

"[...] Commissioner Nakajima of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and Ron Marchant, Chief Executive of the UK Patent Office (UKPO), formally sign the Patent Prosecution Highway pilot agreement in Tokyo today (26 March 2007).

The main aim of the pilot is to improve the quality of patents and the efficiency of processing applications at both offices. The pilot will begin in July 2007 and will run for a year.

The pilot will allow patent applicants who have received an examination report by either the UK Patent Office or the Japan Patent Office to request accelerated examination of a corresponding patent application filed in the other country. Patent applicants will be required to submit search and examination reports prepared by the other patent office in order qualify for accelerated treatment. This will allow each office to benefit from work previously done by the other office, which in turn will reduce examination workload and improve patent quality. [...]"

In my vew this looks like a political demonstration. As explicitely indicated in the press statement, the initiative will help promote international efforts to develop work sharing arrangements aimed at reducing cross-national duplication of effort inherent in the patent system, which was a key recommendation in the recent Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. However, I'm not so optimistic as to the real practical benefits of exchanging such work results in advance of further harmonisation of patent law and patent practice in UK and JP. Time will tell us.

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