Patent Harmonisation – What is happening?

Document No: PUB 20G/15 Posted: 04 March 2016

There are a number of patent harmonisation initiatives ongoing, some driven by the IP5 Of­fices and some through WIPO and the informal B+ subgroup. Most of these initiatives are con­cerned with procedural improvements aimed at making the patent prosecution process simpler to the benefit of the offices and users. However, since 2013 there has been a major push towards substantive patent law harmonisation driven by the chair of the Group B+, John Alty.

The Global Dossier (GD) project arose out of work initiated by the Trilateral Offices including that on the Common Application Format (CAF) and Common Citation Document (CCD), with the purpose of agreeing common procedures between the Offices. Both CAF and CCD have subsequently been taken over by the IP5 Heads.

 

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