Relaxed rules will mean faster patent grants in US and Japan for UK inventors, says IPO

A 12-month pilot scheme will make inventors eligible for obtaining faster patent protection in those countries, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) said

Changes to the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) agreements between the UK, US and Japan means British inventors hoping to gain fast-track patent processing in the US and Japan will face less restrictive qualifying rules, it said.

The PPH allows speedier assessment of patents in countries that participate in the scheme. It is designed to allow someone whose patent has been awarded in one country's offices to receive quicker treatment at another, as well as to enable the second office to use the material produced by the first.

In order to qualify for faster processing under the PPH scheme an applicant has to submit the search and examination reports produced by the partner patent office. Changes to the rules governing the order and priority in which the documents were submitted will make it easier for UK inventors to qualify for the faster processing, the IPO said.

Previous arrangements under the PPH agreements placed restrictions on inventors' eligibility for faster patent processing and were dependent on the order application files were submitted and their priority.

"The new ‘Mottainai’ pilot will help ease the process by relaxing requirements around priority and timing of application," the IPO said in a statement.

"Previously, patent applications have only been eligible for the PPH if they met strict requirements relating to the order in which they were filed and the priority which they claimed. Offices participating in the pilot programme will relax these requirements so that applicants may benefit from the PPH regardless of the order in which their applications were filed or the priority claimed," the statement said.

'Mottainai' is a Japenese word that means "a sense of regret concerning waste when the intrinsic value of an object or resource is not properly utilised", the IPO said.

The UK's Intellectual Property Minister said the changes will benefit UK businesses.

"The Patent Prosecution Highway can significantly speed up the often lengthy process of gaining a patent and help minimise the associated costs to the applicant," Baroness Wilcox said in the IPO's statement.

"It also helps to reduce patent backlogs by minimising the duplication of work carried out by offices. Relaxing the priority requirements will provide greater opportunity and flexibility for businesses to take advantage of quicker and cheaper international patent protection. A greater use of the PPH will also improve the efficiency of participating offices and help contribute to granting high quality patents," Baroness Wilcox said.

The pilot-scheme will operate until 14 July 2012, the IPO said.

In addition to its agreements with the US and Japan, the UK also currently participates in PPH arrangements with Korea.