Vietnam and South Korea have implemented a PPH program

The Intellectual Property Office of Korea (KIPO) and the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (NOIP) have implemented a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program, which is set to benefit applicants from both jurisdictions.

The enactment of this cooperation agreement comes after both countries entered into the Memorandum of Understanding on May 29, 2018. The PPH is already in effect for applications filed on or after June 1, 2019, and will run for a pilot period of 2 years, ending on May 31, 2021.

The PPH allows for patent applications which meet the set requirements to be expedited in the examination, and therefore, in the process of grant. In order to achieve this, applicants must first file with the office of first filing (OFF), which will assess the patentability of the application. Once deemed patentable, the results will then be communicated to the office of second filing (OSF) and applied to the corresponding application, on which the PPH is requested.

To be eligible for this acceleration, the applications in both offices must share the same priority or filing date, and there must be sufficient correspondence between the claims of the two applications. In addition, copies of all office actions, claims (and translations) and references must be made available to the OSF to complete the process, as well as.

The PPH aims to reduce the workload for both intellectual property offices, subsequently improving the quality of patents.