This PPH pilot project will start on June 8, 2024 and last for five years until June 7, 2029. If necessary, the pilot period will be extended until CNIPA and ARIPO accept a sufficient number of PPH requests to properly evaluate the feasibility of the PPH project.

The two bureaus may terminate this PPH pilot program if the number of requests exceeds the manageable level or for any other reason. Before the termination of the PPH pilot program, a notice will be issued first.

PPH: Using work results from ARIPO

Applicants can request expedited review of ARIPO based applications submitted in CNIPA that meet the following requirements for the CNIPA-ARIPO PPH pilot project, in accordance with the prescribed procedures, including submitting documents related to the application.

The applicant must submit a "Request Form for Participating in the Patent Examination Highway (PPH) Pilot Project" to CNIPA when submitting a PPH request.

1. Requirements

(a) The CNIPA application (including PCT national phase application) is

(i) An application for priority under the Paris Convention that effectively requires ARIPO to apply (such as Appendix I Figures A, B, C, F, G, and H), or

(ii) PCT national phase applications that do not claim priority (such as Appendix I and Figure I), or

(iii) An application that effectively claims priority to a PCT application under the Paris Convention, where the PCT application does not claim priority (as shown in Appendix I, Figures J, K, and L).

An application that effectively claims priority to multiple ARIPO applications or direct PCT applications, or a divisional application of the original application that meets the requirements of (i) to (iii) above, also meets the requirements.

(b) There is at least one corresponding application in ARIPO that has one or more claims recognized by ARIPO as patentable/patentable.

The corresponding application can be an application that forms the basis of a priority claim, an application derived from an ARIPO application that forms the basis of a priority claim (such as a divisional application of an ARIPO application or an application claiming priority of an ARIPO application (as shown in Appendix I, Figure C)), or an ARIPO regional stage application of a PCT application (as shown in Appendix I, Figures H, I, J, K, and L). The claim is deemed 'patentable/patentable' when the ARIPO examiner clearly states in the new Office Action that the claim is' patentable ', even if the application has not been granted a patent.

The examination opinion notification includes:

(1) Notification of Decision to Grant or Register (Form 21) and its appendices.

(2) Notification of Non compliance with Substantive Requirements (Form 18) and its Appendices

(3) Notice of Decision Refusal to Grant a Patent (Form 20) and its Appendices

(c) All claims filed by CNIPA (requesting accelerated examination under the PPH pilot project), whether originally submitted or modified, must fully correspond to one or more claims recognized by ARIPO as patentable/authorizable.

Except for differences caused by translation and claim format, if the claims of CNIPA application have the same or similar scope as those of ARIPO application, or if the claims of CNIPA application have a smaller scope than those of ARIPO application, then the claims are considered to be "fully corresponding".

In this regard, when the claims of ARIPO application are modified to be further limited by additional technical features supported by the specification (specification body and/or claims), the scope of the claims becomes smaller.

Compared with the claims recognized as authorized by ARIPO, the introduction of new/different types of claims in the CNIPA application is not considered sufficient correspondence. For example, if the claims of ARIPO application only include method claims for preparing products, then when the claims of CNIPA application introduce product claims that rely on corresponding method claims, the claims of CNIPA application are not considered to be fully corresponding.

CNIPA applications do not need to include all claims deemed patentable/authorizable by ARIPO, and it is permissible to remove certain claims. For example, an ARIPO application may contain 5 claims deemed patentable/authorizable, while a CNIPA application may only contain 3 of these claims.

After the applicant's request to participate in the PPH pilot project is approved and before receiving the examination opinion notice regarding substantive examination, any modified or added claims must fully correspond to the claims identified as patentable/authorizable in the ARIPO application; After the applicant's request to participate in the PPH pilot project is approved, in order to overcome the rejection reasons raised by the examiner, any modified or newly added claims do not need to fully correspond to the claims identified as patentable/authorizable in the ARIPO application. Any modifications or changes beyond the corresponding claims shall be allowed at the discretion of the examiner.

Note that the applicant may proactively propose amendments to the application documents, including the claims, within 3 months from the date of filing a request for substantive examination in CNIPA and receiving the notice of the invention patent application entering the substantive examination stage from CNIPA. Therefore, the applicant needs to pay attention to the timing of the modification, so that the claims of the CNIPA application and the claims recognized as patentable/authorizable in the ARIPO application fully correspond.

(d) The CNIPA application must have been made public.

The applicant must have received the notice of publication of the invention patent application issued by CNIPA before or at the time of submitting the PPH request.

(e) The CNIPA application must have entered the substantive examination stage.

The applicant must have received a notice from CNIPA that the invention patent application has entered the substantive examination stage before or at the time of submitting the PPH request.

Note that an allowed exception is that the applicant may submit a PPH request at the same time as the substantive examination request.

(f) CNIPA has not reviewed the application at the time of the applicant's PPH request.

The applicant has not received any examination opinion notification from the CNIPA substantive examination department before or at the time of submitting the PPH request.

(g) CNIPA applications must be electronic applications.

The applicant must convert the paper CNIPA application into an electronic application before submitting a PPH request.

2. Submitted documents

The following documents (a) to (c) must be submitted together with the "Request Form for Participating in the Patent Examination Highway (PPH) Pilot Project".

Note that even if certain documents do not need to be submitted, their file names must be included in the "Request Form for Participating in the Patent Examination Highway (PPH) Pilot Project" (see the following sample table for specific details).

(a) Copy and translation of all examination opinion notices issued by ARIPO regarding the corresponding application (related to ARIPO's examination opinion on patentability)

Chinese or English can be used as the translation language. Acceptable machine translation. If the examiner is unable to understand the translation of the claims, they may request the applicant to resubmit the translation.

(b) Copies and translations of all claims deemed patentable/authorizable by ARIPO

Chinese or English can be used as the translation language. If the examiner is unable to understand the translation of the claims, they may request the applicant to resubmit the translation.

(c) Copy of referenced file

The documents to be submitted refer to the documents cited in the aforementioned review opinion notification. References that are only reference documents and do not constitute grounds for rejection do not need to be submitted.

If the cited document is a patent document, the applicant does not need to submit document 1. If CNIPA does not have these patent documents, at the request of the examiner, the applicant must submit patent documents. Non patent documents must be submitted. The applicant does not need to submit a translation of the cited documents.

When the applicant has submitted the above documents (a) to (c) to CNIPA through synchronization or previous procedures, these documents can be added by reference without having to be attached.

3. Submit the "Request Form for Participating in the Patent Examination Expressway (PPH) Pilot Project" to expedite the examination process based on the PPH pilot project

(a) Situation description

The applicant must submit a "Request Form for Participating in the Patent Examination Highway (PPH) Pilot Project" to CNIPA to expedite the examination process based on the PPH pilot project.

The applicant must indicate that the application falls under the circumstances (i) to (iii) of 1. (a), and request expedited examination based on the PPH pilot project. The applicant must also indicate the corresponding ARIPO application number, publication number, or authorized patent number.

If there are one or more applications with patentable/patentable claims that are different from the ARIPO applications involved in situations (i) to (iii) of 1. (a) (such as divisional applications of the basic application), the application number, publication number, or authorized patent number of the patentable/patentable claim application must be specified, as well as the relationship between the relevant applications.

(b) Submitted documents

The applicant must list all the required documents mentioned in section 2 above in a clear and identifiable manner, even if the applicant may omit submitting certain documents.

(c) Correspondence of claims

The applicant must indicate in column D of the "Request Form for Participating in the Patent Examination Highway (PPH) Pilot Project" how all claims of the CNIPA application fully correspond to the patentable/authorizable claims in the ARIPO application when submitting a PPH request.

If the claims are identical in wording, the applicant may simply indicate in the table that they are identical. If there are differences in the claims, it is necessary to interpret the sufficient correspondence of each claim according to the standard in 1. (c) above.

(d) Explanation

The applicant can only submit the "Request Form for Participating in the Patent Examination Highway (PPH) Pilot Project" to CNIPA in electronic form.

4. Accelerating the review process under the PPH pilot project

CNIPA makes a decision on whether the application can be granted expedited review status under PPH upon receipt of the PPH request and its accompanying documents. If CNIPA decides to approve the PPH request, the application will be granted a special status of accelerated review under PPH.

If the request does not fully meet the above requirements, the applicant will be informed of the results and the deficiencies in the request. CNIPA will provide the applicant with an opportunity to make corrections as appropriate to overcome certain deficiencies in the request. If the request is not approved, the applicant may resubmit the request at least once. If the resubmitted request still does not meet the requirements, the applicant will be informed of the result and the application will wait for review according to normal procedures.

Sample table

Appendix 1