July 16, 2008
Try Triway
The USPTO, EPO, and JPO are joining forces once again to combat pendency and quality issues. With all their powers combined, they are Triway, planetary patent force. The one-year Triway pilot will launch July 28th, and will accept up to 100 participating applications. Triway will complement the existing Patent Prosecution Highway Program, and attempt to further promote worksharing between patent offices.
From the UPSTO announcement:
The basic concept behind the Triway proposal is to promote worksharing by eliminating certain timing issues, while at the same time providing applicants and the Offices with the benefit of search results of the Trilateral Offices being available within a certain short time period in order to give applicants and Trilateral Offices an opportunity to share and consider all of the Trilateral search results. This would help improve the resulting quality of any patents issued on the corresponding applications by each of the Trilateral Offices. The Triway proposal would complement other worksharing efforts such as the Patent Prosecution Highway Program.
Under the Triway proposal, each Office would conduct searches on corresponding applications filed under the Paris Convention in each of the Offices in a sufficiently early time period. The search results from each of the Offices would then be shared among the Offices in order to reduce the search and examination workload in each of the Offices.
Previous coverage of the Patent Prosecution Highway Program: Patent Prosecution Highway - Bridge Two
Posted by Mr. Platinum at July 16, 2008 9:15 PM | Prosecution