During the 68th Series of Meetings of the WIPO Assemblies, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) announced a five-year renewal of its Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) arrangement with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). The renewal preserves a work-sharing route under which eligible applicants may rely on favourable examination results from one office to request accelerated processing before the other. CIPO also signed new cooperation work plans with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, the Norwegian Industrial Property Office and France’s...
The Australian Government has further detailed its latest IP systems simplification package, with two changes standing out for applicants and rights holders. The first would replace the current Time to Acceptance model with a more responsive examination timetable, closer in spirit to the US approach. In practice, patent applicants could face shorter reply windows after an examination report, such as a two-month period for response, alongside tighter limits on the number of formal replies.The second proposal would allow patents and designs to use “virtual marking” through QR codes, barcodes...
With Indonesia’s Ministerial Regulation No. 6 of 2026 now fully in force, DJKI has used its online filing system this week to issue a practical warning: any excess claims fees for new patent applications must be paid in full at the time of filing. The message is procedural, but its effect is immediate. Claim counting, specification drafting and payment checks now need to be handled as one filing task, not as separate follow-up items.For applicants, the main risk is not simply a higher official fee. It is the loss of room to correct a fee gap after the application has entered the system....
Bahrain’s Intellectual Property Office has reported that its IP portal, previously disrupted by a technical failure, is now fully restored. The authority has also clarified that late filings caused by the service interruption will not attract late fees and should not prejudice core deadlines such as priority claims; affected users should now complete any pending steps through the online system as soon as possible.The practical message is reassuring but not a reason to slow down. The temporary allowance to submit certified legal documents, including powers of attorney, within three months...
A USPTO decision disclosed on 3 May tightens the link between inter partes review and ex parte reexamination. The key point is the timing of estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(1): a request for reexamination is not treated merely as a filing made on a particular day, but as a pending request that continues until the Office orders reexamination under 35 U.S.C. § 304.That reading narrows a familiar strategy: challenge the patent first through IPR, then use ex parte reexamination as a second route if the IPR record begins to look unfavourable. If the IPR final written decision has already...
The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) moved ahead with phase two of its One IPO digital patent service on 6 August 2026. The new stage pushes patent filing further toward structured electronic data and away from paper and conventional PDF forms. It also introduces dedicated metadata for AI-assisted drafting and inventorship, bringing the use of AI tools into the data checks performed during formalities examination.The practical effect is clearest for applicants filing at scale through APIs or automated workflows. If a submission package omits the required AI-use declaration or...
The Japan Patent Office has updated its PPH anniversary information, reporting that 56 intellectual property offices had implemented the Patent Prosecution Highway by April 2026. The programme began as a JPO–USPTO pilot in July 2006 and has since become a familiar tool for applicants seeking to reuse positive examination results across jurisdictions.The latest figures also show 29 offices participating in the Global PPH framework, for which JPO serves as secretariat. For applicants managing parallel filings, the practical message is clear: PPH planning should sit closer to the filing and...
Canada’s patent term adjustment (PTA) regime is now a practical post-grant issue for patent owners. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has opened the route for requesting additional patent term where statutory conditions are met, including for patents granted after 1 December 2025. Because the request period is generally tied to a three-month deadline from grant, the first wave of deadline management will become visible in March 2026.The change deserves attention, but not every Canadian patent will justify a PTA request. Owners should first check whether the relevant delay is...
On 6 August 2026, the USPTO Appeals Review Panel (ARP) issued its rehearing decision in Ex parte Baurin, reinstating an obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP) rejection. The panel treated the anti-harassment rationale as independently relevant: even where there is no apparent unjustified extension of patent term, OTDP may still address the risk that commonly owned patent rights later become divided and asserted separately.Continue reading with a member accountRegister free to unlock full analysis and practical recommendations.Log InRegister
Developments reported around 8 July 2026 by the Israel Patent Office and in related case law further clarify the boundary for software- and AI-related patent claims. Following the position confirmed in the 2026 DABUS decision, an inventor named in an Israeli patent application must still be a natural person. On patent eligibility, merely implementing business logic, administrative processes or abstract rules with AI is unlikely to be enough. Applicants need to link the algorithm to a specific technical problem, system architecture and measurable result, such as stronger data security, lower...
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has reminded applicants that, from July 20, 2026, any patent matter involving at least one applicant or patent owner domiciled outside the United States and its territories will generally need to be handled by a registered U.S. patent practitioner in good standing. The requirement covers utility, plant and design patent matters and applies to filings received on or after that date, including amendments, responses, information disclosure statements, petitions and most other correspondence. Pending applications filed before July 20 are not exempt from the...
IP Australia’s 2026 Australian Intellectual Property Report shows that trademark filings reached a record 97,345 in 2025, up 13.3%, while applications by Australian residents rose 15.1% to 55,913. Domestic standard complete patent filings also increased, from 2,578 to 2,810, a gain of 9.0%. Taken together, the patent, trademark and design data suggest that Australian businesses are making more deliberate use of IP to support branding, technology protection and product differentiation.The growth was not evenly distributed across filing origins. Standard patent applications from the United...
The EPO’s 2026 Guidelines for Examination took effect in April, and a continuing series of Marks & Clerk analyses has highlighted three procedural changes with immediate practical relevance. PACE requests for accelerated search have been withdrawn because the EPO now treats timely search reports as part of its normal workflow, although accelerated examination under PACE remains available. Applicants therefore have less reason to focus on expediting search and more reason to prepare early for the transition from the search opinion into substantive examination.The treatment of amendments has...
Congress has approved H.R. 6500, extending the USPTO's America Invents Act fee-setting authority through 11 December 2026. Without congressional action, that authority would have expired after 15 September. The short extension removes the immediate risk of a statutory gap and gives lawmakers several more months to decide whether the Office should retain longer-term flexibility to set patent and trademark fees.The more consequential issue is what Congress may demand in return. At a 2 September House Judiciary subcommittee hearing, lawmakers and witnesses tied the renewal debate to the Patent...
The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) reopened requests for both SG Patents Fast and SG Trade Marks Fast on 1 September 2026 after a suspension lasting more than half a year. The updated operating guidance introduces tighter annual quota management for patent acceleration, more detailed limits on claim numbers, and closer attention to technology fields. Patent applications will generally need to stay within 20 claims, while areas such as artificial intelligence and green technologies may receive priority examination resources. For qualifying cases, IPOS is targeting an...
According to a USPTO announcement and Ghanaian reporting published on 14 July, the Ghana Industrial Property Office (GHIPO), under the Office of the Registrar of Companies, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office signed a statement of intent in Geneva on 9 July 2026 concerning an Accelerated Patent Grant (APG) arrangement. Ghana is the first African country to move forward with this type of cooperation with the USPTO. Under the proposed mechanism, an applicant holding a granted US patent and a corresponding Ghanaian application may request accelerated grant in Ghana, while GHIPO...
By mid-July 2026, two significant intellectual property reforms in East Africa had moved into sharper focus. Tanzania’s Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, 2026 remains under legislative consideration and proposes coordinated changes to the Trade and Service Marks Act and the Patents (Registration) Act. The draft would recognise ARIPO trade marks designating Tanzania, strengthen protection for well-known, collective and certification marks, extend the patent term from ten years to twenty years from filing, and reinforce the utility model framework. If adopted in its current...
On July 22, 2026, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a proposed rule that would amend 37 CFR 1.510 and require third-party ex parte reexamination requesters to identify themselves and every other real party in interest. The statement could, on request, be kept out of the public patent and reexamination files and retained confidentially by the USPTO. Comments are due by August 21, 2026. The proposal would not necessarily make every identity public, but it would end the model in which even the Office may not know who is actually behind a request.The USPTO links the change to its...
On 14 July 2026, the World Intellectual Property Organization announced that the PCT Assembly had approved the appointment of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) as an International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Once operational, IMPI will become the 26th PCT International Authority and the third in Latin America and the Caribbean. In practical terms, it will be able to issue international search reports and written opinions, and to carry out international preliminary examination when...
On 30 July 2026, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an official notice designating the severe earthquake that struck Japan on 28 July as an “extraordinary situation” under 37 CFR 1.183, 2.146(a)(5) and 2.148. Depending on the proceeding, affected patent and trademark applicants, patent owners, reexamination parties and trademark registrants may request measures such as restarting an unexpired response period, waiving certain petition fees or maintenance-fee surcharges, or obtaining relief from delays caused by the disaster. For trademark matters, the notice also...
