Patent Prosecution Highway
PPH agreements
In July 2007 we started a pilot PPH program with the Japan Patent Office (JPO).
In September 2007 we also started a pilot PPH program with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Patent Prosecution Highway
The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is an initiative which provides you with a means of significantly accelerating examination of your patent application if examination work has already been conducted at another intellectual property office.
Under the PPH agreements, if claims of your application have been found to be acceptable by a first intellectual property office, you may request accelerated examination of a corresponding application at a second intellectual property office.
The PPH puts in place a procedure whereby national intellectual property offices can make use of relevant work already conducted by another intellectual property office when conducting the patent examination.
Making use of this work should greatly improve our efficiency and also improve the quality of the patents that we issue. The procedure could provide you with a granted patent for your invention much sooner than would normally be possible.
Background
In the modern global economy many companies and some individual applicants have a growing need to acquire patent protection for the same invention in a variety of different countries. This may require separate patent applications to many different national intellectual property offices, each considering the patent application independently of the others.
With this in mind, and following the recommendations of the recent Gowers Report, we have been investigating the possibility of international collaboration with other national intellectual property offices to enable national offices to exploit relevant work already conducted by another national office. This has led to PPH agreements with various countries being considered.
Further Information
For further information contact Alastair Kelly (01633) 814417 or email PPH@ipo.gov.uk.
