The Canadian Patent Office has announced a new Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot project between the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) and the Israel Patent Office (ILPO) which will commence on November 1, 2012, for a period of two years ending on October 31, 2014. This agreement is similar CIPO's other PPH agreements. The PPH allows a patent applicant to request the CIPO for accelerated examination of a patent application that meets certain criteria to be advanced out of turn for examination if there is at least one corresponding application in a foreign patent office that Canada has a PPH program with that has one or more claims that were found to be allowable.
See the link below for further information:
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr03564.html
In addition, see our blog dated October 5, 2012 regarding other PPH agreements:
http://www.canadaipblog.com/2012/10/three-patent-prosecution-highway-pilot.html
By Kay Palmer