PPH Pacific Alliance was signed in January this year, but last  June 30th concluded with the signing of the Declaration in Santiago with the Guidelines for implementation by the IP authorities of the 4 member countries of the Alliance.

This framework agreement, establishes the interest of patent offices of Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru, to create a collaboration space in order to perform patent prosecution promptly, high quality and low cost, aware that the protection of inventions, through the patent system is key factor in strengthening the economy of the region.

The Patent Prosecution Highway – known by its acronym in English as PPH – aims to ensure that the applicant for a patent in any of the member countries, who had been previously evaluated by any of the other members, counts on a fast track examination, provided that:

  1. Claims of both applications have sufficient correspondence and
  2. The search results and examination of the office that first examined, are available to the subsequent office for further examination.

It also includes a section, in which states, that the research results and the exams outcome of the international PCT (WO/ISA y WO, IPRP, IPER/IPEA) made by the Chilean office, will also be considered for the scope of this agreement.

The Pilot Program will have a duration of three years and it may be extended for an additional period of 1 year, may then after an evaluation of the participants, define the PPH is implemented permanently.

It is important to highlight the great opportunity that this instrument generates for our clients, who may like to register their patents in the countries of the Alliance, as long as they have filed an application with any of the four authorities and it has been examined, may ensure generating an accelerated processing for patents in other member countries and thus achieve effective protection for their inventions without unnecessary or unjustified delays.