PPH Programme

The principal aim of the Patent Prosecution Highway Programme (the PPH Programme) is to provide an applicant with an opportunity to get a patent faster and more efficiently, in one of the participating Offices, through the use of results of the search and examination conducted in the other participating Office.

The PPH Programme constitutes bilateral agreements between the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) and other patent offices (further - Partner Office).

The PPH Programme is based on the international work sharing between EAPO and Partner Office in processing of applications, filed to both Offices and which meet the requirements of the PPH Programme. In particular, one of the requirements is that all claims of the application, in respect of which an accelerated examination under the PPH Programme is requested, must sufficiently correspond to one or more claims which were positively indicated as patentable at the other Office.

Applications which were indicated as patentable by Partner Office, in its capacity as an International Searching Authority and/or International Preliminary Examining Authority (ISA/IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), can also participate in the PPH Programme between EAPO and Partner Office.

The processing of applications under the PPH Programme does not require payments of additional fees.

Enhanced examination quality

Recognition by one of the participating Offices, at least one claim as patentable gives the applicant a considerable legal certainty and higher predictability of the examination results at the other participating Office, in comparison to ordinary applications, which are not processed in the frame of PPH Programme.

Conducting at one of the participating Offices an examination of the application in respect of which a patent search and substantive examination were in fact conducted already, undoubtedly enhances the quality of examination, since the examiner uses all available additional information, including the search carried out by the other Office, which can often extend to collections of documents available in the working language of the Office (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean), as well as correspondence between the Office and the applicant in respect of the application filed.

Reduced time of examination

The Office begins substantive examination of applications, for which an accelerated examination was requested in accordance with PPH Programme, earlier than for applications which do not participate in the PPH Programme.

Although each Office evaluates the patentability of an invention on the basis of national or regional law applicable at that Office, the Office, taking into account a positive opinion on the patentability of Partner Office, can carry out a shortened examination by reducing the number of actions, including correspondence with the applicant on the patentability, which were discussed in the course of the examination by the other participating Office.

Partner Offices

• Japan Patent Office (JPO)
• European Patent Office (EPO)
• China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA)
• Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO)
• Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH)