Green patent speed-up

News

Individuals applying for UK patent protection, for an invention relating to green or environmentally friendly technology, can now request fast tracking of their patent application.

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has introduced a scheme through which parties applying for UK patent protection for an invention relating to green or environmentally friendly technology can request fast tracking of their patent application.

The scheme came into force on 12 May 2009.

For a qualifying patent application, the scheme allows the acceleration of a search, examination, combined search and examination, and/or publication of the application.

Applications in existence on 12 May 2009 will also be able to benefit from the service.

Procedures for requesting acceleration of proceedings on individual patent applications had previously been in place at the UK IPO.

However, for a request for accelerated treatment to succeed, applications were required to provide a good business reason to illustrate why the UK IPO should deal with a particular application over and above other pending applications.

The requirement for a reasoned request has now been removed for inventions relating to green or environmentally friendly technologies.

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