Asia IP

The patent offices of Japan, the EU and the United States concluded their trial Triway pilot programme, which allowed the European Patent Office and the Japan Patent Office to use results from the US Patent and Trademark Office when the USPTO had been used as the office of first filing.

The Triway pilot was designed to promote worksharing by eliminating certain timing issues, while at the same time providing applicants and the patent 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.

The programme was launched on July 28, 2008, and was scheduled to end on July 28, 2009, or after 100 applications were received, whichever came first.