The Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (IPVN), according to Notice No. 8617/TB-SHTT dated 28 September 2022, has just informed: “From 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023, the IPVN will receive the rest of 200 PPH requests for the period of time from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023“.
After Phases 1 and 2, the PPH pilot program between the IPVN and the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) is currently in its Phase 3. Phase 3 lasts three years (2022-2025) and each year of the phase consists of two stages: The first stage lasts from 1 April to 30 September and the second stage lasts from 1 October to 31 March of the following calendar year, with 100 requests for each stage. Accordingly, Phase 3 has six stages. The Notice implies that:
- The quota of 100 PPH requests of the first stage (1 April 2022 to 30 September 2022) of the first year of Phase 3 has not been full – less than 100 PPH requests have been filed in the first stage of the first year so far; and
- The rest of the quota will be received in the second stage (1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023) of the first year – accordingly, more than the quota of 100 PPH requests (the quota of 100 PPH requests of the second stage plus the rest of the quota of the first stage) can be filed in the second stage.
In the past, all such notices were issued prior to the time limits and were to inform that the quota of 100 PPH requests had been full. This is the first time, such notice (said Notice No. 8617/TB-SHTT) is to inform a piece of converse information that the quota has not been full. The statistics of Phase 2 below (Phase 2 also has the same six stages with the same quota) indicate a gradually reduced interest in this PPH pilot program. The information from Notice No. 8617/TB-SHTT is a signal that this trend has been extending in Phase 3.
As shown in the table, for Stages 5 and 6, they lasted 105 and 117 days, respectively, for 100 PPH requests to be filed; while for Stages 1 to 3, all of 100 PPH requests were filed on the starting date.
For the first stage of the first year of Phase 3, as reported above, 181 days passed, but less than the quota of 100 PPH requests have been filed.
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By Dao Thu Trang
Deputy Director of Patent Department
