After a bilateral meeting between China State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and Russia Federal Intellectual Property Office (FIPO), China and Russia concluded a Memorandum of Understanding on Patent Prosecution Highway between the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federal Intellectual Property Office. [detail information in Chinese]

The Russian office has now become the fifth national IP office to conclude a  patent prosecution highway with China SIPO (the others are Japan, the USA, Germany and Korea). According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the pilot project will begin on July. 1^st 2012, and will last for 1 year.  The rapid growth in PPH’s, including this intra-BRIC PPH,  is startling considering prior Chinese concerns that PPH’s and other methods of burden sharing might adversely implicate China’s “patent sovereignty.”