China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) announced on April 11, 2024 that it will join the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Improvement Initiative (PPH改进倡议) in cooperation with the IP5 (China, the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea). The Initiative’s goal is to provide a more predictable examination cycle. Accordingly, CNIPA will aim for an average time to issuance of a first office action from grant of a PPH request at 3 months. Similarly, CNIPA will aim for an average time of Examiner response to Applicant’s reply at 3 months. 

The Patent Prosecution Highway is an international cooperation program enabling applicants to request accelerated examination of a patent application pending at a second office (known as the office of later examination or OLE) and having been found allowable/patentable by a first office (known as the office of earlier examination or OEE).

The USPTO and the JPO launched this initiative in 2022 to increase the predictability of the timing of PPH examination by having set a 3-month pendency to each action during examination of a PPH application. The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) joined the initiative on August 1, 2023 setting a 3-month pendency to each action during examination of a PPH application.

The full text of the announcement is available here (Chinese only).