The Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (IPVN) has announced that 100 PPH requests, for the period from 1 April 2021 to 30 September 2021 of Phase 2 under the pilot program, had been filed until 15 July 2021. The final period of Phase 2 will be from 1 October 2021 to 30 March 2022 for 100 PPH requests. After Phase 2, the IPVN and the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) will consider the PPH program to extend or terminate it.
At present, due to the strong outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the IPVN is stopping to receive directly paper documents – filings are via post or online. PPH requests cannot be filed online. If receiving these paper documents directly, the IPVN will stop receiving when reaching the quota of 100 PPH requests, but it will be complex and difficult to control the quota when receiving by post where packages with a lot of the PPH requests are received at the same time. As a solution, the starting date of receiving PPH requests of 1 October may be moved to another date as it was the case in 2020. Another expected solution is to modify the IPVN’s online filing system to receive PPH requests online.
The program is highly effective in accelerating patent examinations in Vietnam. Said quota of 100 PPH requests could reach quickly, and therefore, applicants would be preparing PPH requests for filing them early on the date of 1 October 2021, starting the final period of Phase 2.
Should you require any further information or assistance, please contact us at patent@investip.vn.
By Dao Thu Trang
Deputy Director of Patent Department
INVESTIP IP LAW FIRM
