The Patent Prosecution Highway is a set of initiatives for providing accelerated patent prosecution procedures by sharing information between some patent offices. It also permits each participating patent office to benefit from the work previously done by the other patent office, with the goal of reducing examination workload and improving patent quality. An updated "PPH 2.0" system under the program name "Mottainai" began among several national patent offices in mid-2011.
Cooperations (examples)
A number of patent offices are participating to PPH schemes. The following are examples of cooperations:
DKPTO - USPTO: A trial period started on 3 November 2008 and is set to expire 3 November 2009.)
European Patent Office - USPTO: A one-year trial cooperation program commenced on 29 September 2008, for a period of one year ending on 29 September 2009. It was then extended for an additional period of 12 months, effective as of 30 September 2009.
EPO - JPO: Launch of a bilateral PPH pilot with effect on 29 January 2010.
IP Australia - USPTO: A one-year pilot program under PPH 2.0 commenced on January 29, 2012, and was extended indefinitely in July 2012.
JPO - USPTO: The pilot program started in July 2006. The trial period was originally scheduled to last for one year, but was extended until January 3, 2008. The program has been implemented on a full-time basis since January 4, 2008.
JPO - UK-IPO: A one-year pilot program commenced on July 1, 2007. Following the pilot program it was announced that the PPH program would be made permanent.
KIPO - USPTO: A one-year pilot program commenced on January 28, 2008 and ended on January 28, 2009. The Patent Prosecution Highway is implemented on a full-time basis since January 29, 2009.
A Patent Cooperation Treaty/Patent Prosecution Highway pilot program was also started on 29 January 2010 for a planned period of two years. This pilot program enables to " patent examination procedures for PCT applications that have received a positive written opinion of either the International Searching Authority or the International Preliminary Examining Authority, or an international preliminary examination report from the European Patent Office, the Japan Patent Office or the United States Patent and Trademark Office." , page 8ff: " the case of PCT applications that have received a positive written opinion of either the ISA or the IPEA, or an IPER from the European Patent Office, the Japan Patent Office or the United States Patent and Trademark Office, patent examination procedures in the national phase before those Offices can be fast-tracked under the Trilateral PCT-Patent Prosecution Highway."
IP5 patent prosecution highway (IP5-PPH)
On 6 January 2016, a patent prosecution highway program was launched between the five intellectual property offices
A decision was made in 2016 to extend the duration of the programme by three years. The European Patent Office published in its official journal that the program is going to available from 6 January 2017 until 5 January 2020. Participation in the program before the European Patent Office requires that substantive examination of the European patent application has not started yet. The starting date of substantive examination of a European patent application is publicly available from the European Patent Register via file inspection.
Specific patent offices
at the :de:Österreichisches Patentamt|Austrian Patent Office
