The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a work-sharing initiative that provides patent applicants whose applications have been determined allowable by a Patent Office are entitled to request, through a simple procedure, for accelerated examination of the corresponding applications in another Patent Office.
The IPOPHL currently operates the PPH on a bilateral basis with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) since 2012, United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) since 2013, Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) since 2015, and European Patent Office (EPO) since 2017. All these PPH Bilateral Programs are extended for an indefinite period.
Applicants can benefit from faster prosecution of their applications and acquisition of higher quality patent rights.
The following set of minimum eligibilities is the same for all of IPOPHL’s existing PPH Bilateral Programs:
1. IPOPHL application shall have the same earliest date (whether priority or filing date) with the corresponding application in the PPH partner Office;
2. At least one or more claims are determined as patentable/allowable in the corresponding application in the PPH partner Office;
3. All claims in the application being sought for PPH participation must "sufficiently correspond" to one or more patentable/allowable claims in the PPH partner Office; and
4. Examination on the merits of the corresponding application in IPOPHL has not been made yet.
Request to fast track the examination of your patent application at IPOPHL, based on the work products from any of IPOPHL’s PPH Partners, by submitting the following:
- PPH Request Form
- Claim Correspondence Table (included in the request form)
- Other relevant documents (as stated in the corresponding guidelines)
QUICK LINKS
For more information, please call (02) 238-6300 local 3821 & 3801