New Global Patent Prosecution Highway launched to simplify use

Using the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) for obtaining accelerated examination has become considerably simpler as 17 IP offices around the world has agreed on a Global Patent Prosecution Highway (GPPH) arrangement which took effect recently.Most notably, this means that applicants may request accelerated examination of a patent application filed with any of the offices participating in the GPPH based on a set of patent claims accepted for grant in an analogous patent application filed with any of the other participating offices.

Hence, a wide wariety of new possibilities for requesting accelerated prosecution and obtaining a granted patent fast have become available for users of any of these 17 offices for first filing of patent applications.

The 17 participating offices include the IP offices of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, USA, Russia, Israel, Spain, Sweden, UK, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Hungary, Portugal and the Nordic Patent Institute (NPI).

The GPPH will apply to the use of both PCT and national work products and is based on one common set of requirements, meaning that irrespective of the office at which accelerated prosecution under the GPPH is requested, the request and the set of claims filed with the request must satisfy the exact same basic conditions.

Troels Peter Rørdam, European Patent Attorney & Certified Danish Patent Agent