International Cooperation

between Rospatent and the Japan Patent Office to cooperate in the field of Patent Prosecution

The meeting between the Director General of the Japan Patent Office Mr. Takashi Suzuki and the Director General of Rospatent Mr. Boris Simonov took place on April 21 in Moscow. On the results of the meeting the Joint Statement of Intent between the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks of the Russian Federation and the Japan Patent Office to cooperate in the field of Patent Prosecution (Patent Prosecution Highway – PPH) was signed.

This document is the follow-up of the joint activities based on bilateral agreements on working out questions of implementing more efficient procedures of patent examination in the Offices. The accelerated examination of the patent application can be performed under the PPH program since this program provides the possibility to use the results of patent search and examination, which were performed by one of the Offices, in the course of considering the application for the corresponding invention by another Office.

The parties appreciated the results of joint activities in this field and agreed that the signed document is a great stride in strengthening of co-operation between the Offices and it gives the significant impulse for development of co-operation between two countries.

Mr. Simonov noted that the development of PPH as a branched system of interaction between the Offices would undoubtedly have synergetic result, providing all of the categories of patent system users with the additional opportunity to choose the procedure of obtaining legal protection depending on their facilities, what is particularly urgent for SMEs.

The parties agreed Russian and Japanese business and SMEs in particular would benefit from the realization of the project, since the distribution of the working load between the Offices besides the acceleration of patent documentation processing allows significantly decrease the costs of obtaining the legal protection of inventions.

Creation of such system will provide the impulse for solution of tasks related to further development of the PCT system by interactions between the PPH and the PCT systems, decreasing of back-logs of unexamined patent applications and as well the increasing of the level of the Offices involved in this work in particular by establishing of international standards of carrying out patent search and examination.

The documents relating to this project are published on web-sites of the JPO and Rospatent in Russian , English and Japanese .

At the moment except the JPO and Rospatent a number of leading patent offices take part in the PPH program, between them the EPO, the USPTO, the UK Intellectual Property Office, Patent Offices of Germany, Korea, Australia and others.