LOCAL inventors who want to license their creations can now benefit from the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), a new pilot cooperation initiative between the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO).

Both offices signed the Statement of Intent on Monday for this work-sharing programme.

To be launched on July 1, this one-year pilot programme will help to speed up the patent application process here, as patent certificates can be granted faster.

An average period for a regular patent application from request to first action in the JPO is about 26 months. With the PPH, it is estimated that this will be reduced to about 2-3 months.

In order to obtain a grant for a patent, a search and examination must take place. A search is conducted by the patent office for relevant information and materials related to the invention. An examination determines that the patent is new, involves an inventive step, and is capable of industrial application.

The PPH will allow both the Singapore and Japan offices to reduce the search and examination workload. This is Singapore's second PPH pilot programme. The first was signed with the US in February.

Ms Liew Woon Yin, Director-General of IPOS, said that 'applicants will be able to obtain quicker patent protection and begin commercialisation of their intellectual property earlier.'

This sharing of work is crucial due to the increasing number of patent applications worldwide, as well as in Singapore. Local-based patent requests increased from 729 in 2007 to 808 in 2008.

Another new programme is the Asean Patent Examination Cooperation (ASPEC) project, which began on Monday. This is the first regional cooperation between Asean countries, and was initiated by the IPOS. The countries taking part are Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

This means that patent examiners in these countries will be able to share their search and examination results, thereby reducing their workloads.