Bahrain and Japan have officially signed a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) agreement, which will take effect on January 1, 2026. The initiative aims to streamline the patent examination process between the two countries.

The program allows innovators to leverage a favorable patent grant outcome in one country to request accelerated examination in the other. This move is designed to reduce duplication of work, shorten examination timelines, and provide more efficient and enhanced intellectual property protection.

The agreement with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) highlights Bahrain’s commitment to building a world-class intellectual property ecosystem to attract high-quality investment. Japan becomes the latest addition to Bahrain’s PPH partner network, which already includes patent offices in the United States, China, South Korea, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and Oman.

Jehad Ali Hasan, CEO of Doha-based JAH Intellectual Property, stated:
“The new PPH agreement fundamentally transforms strategies for obtaining patent protection in Bahrain and the broader Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) market. By leveraging the JPO’s final patentability decisions—one of the world’s leading IP authorities—the PPH enables clients to significantly accelerate the patent granting process in Bahrain. This allows earlier market exclusivity and faster enforcement against infringement. From a cost perspective, clients can expect an overall reduction in application expenses.”

He added:
“The Bahrain Patent Office will rely heavily on the JPO’s established examination results, greatly reducing the need for lengthy and complex local substantive examinations. This will likely lower professional service fees associated with responding to multiple rounds of office actions. Moreover, from a risk standpoint, the PPH significantly reduces uncertainties surrounding patent grants. A favorable JPO decision provides a highly reliable indication for Bahrain’s patentability outcome, ensuring that granted patents are of high quality and establishing a strong foundation for defensive or offensive litigation strategies across the region.”

Mohcine Fattah, the firm's Senior Director of Intellectual Property, pointed out that the key divergence in patent eligibility lies in the specific exceptions stipulated under Bahrain’s mandatory patent law framework.

“Although the JPO possesses highly sophisticated examination capabilities in complex technical fields such as computer-implemented inventions and biotechnology, claim sets must be adjusted to ensure they do not violate Bahrain’s explicit public order or morality exceptions. A successful PPH request must strictly satisfy the requirement of adequate correspondence—claims in the Bahrain application must be identical to or narrower than those allowed by the JPO. These strategic adjustments must therefore be forward-looking.”

He further noted that one major limitation of the agreement is that it applies only to the national patent office and does not automatically extend to the GCC Patent Office.

“Nevertheless, the signing of this agreement sends a strong signal across the Middle East: a commitment to modernization and international harmonization. By expanding its PPH cooperation network, Bahrain is clearly positioning itself as a regional intellectual property hub, with efficiency, quality, and predictability at its core. This development should encourage clients to prioritize jurisdictions that demonstrate international cooperation, viewing them as key gateways for high-quality and efficient patent protection covering the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.”

Source:https://ipr.mofcom.gov.cn/article/gjxw/jlhz/zljlhz/202511/1993901.html