1United States Patent and Trademark Office – www.uspto.gov

Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)

United States Patent and Trademark Office

2

Background

2006 Cross filing Applications among IP5 Offices

3

PPH: Fast Track Examination of Applications

• What is PPH?– When claims are determined to be allowable in the

Office of First Filing (OFF), a corresponding application filed in the Office of Second Filing (OSF) may be advanced out of turn.

• What is the Purpose of PPH?– OSF can utilize the search and examination results of

the OFF thereby avoiding duplication of work and expediting the examination process in the OSF.

4

What Are the Benefits of PPH?

PPH Benefits for Applicant• Provides quicker patentability determination in

multiple jurisdictions.

• Decreases costs of prosecution.

5

What Are the Benefits of PPH?

PPH Benefits for Offices– Avoid redundant work by reuse of OFF

work product

– Claims reduced in number and narrowed in focus to what was previously allowed

– Reduced Pendency

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PPH Requirements

Claim Correspondence

All claims in each U.S. application must “sufficiently correspond” to the allowable claims in the application in the OFF.

7

PPH Requirements (cont’d)

Qualifying Applications

– Current PPH Programs, generally speaking• Paris priority applications

• PCT Bridge filings

• Certain non-binding work product e.g. EPO’s EESR

– Future PCT-PPH Pilot• PCT-PPH pilot among the Trilateral Offices

– Positive international search reports, written opinions, and international preliminary examination reports

8

Current PPH Programs

PPH Pilot to Full implementation Japan (JPO)

Effective on January 4, 2008 Korea (KIPO)

Effective on January 29, 2009

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Current PPH Pilot Programs

Current Pilots Australia (IPAU) Canada (CIPO) Denmark (DKPTO) European Patent Office (EPO) Finland (NBPR) Germany (DPMA) Singapore (IPOS) United Kingdom (UK IPO) Rospatent (in discussions) Trilateral PCT-PPH (January 2010)

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PPH Requests

First Office Start Date Requests (as of 1 Nov. 2009)

 

JPO July 2006 1657 278 (Pilot)

1379 (Perm)

 

UKIPO Sept 2007 69  KIPO Jan. 2008 351

134 (Pilot) 217 (Perm)

Total

CIPO Jan. 2008 21 2,164IPAU April 2008 24  EPO Sept. 2008 21  

DKPTO Nov. 2008 9  DPMA April 2009 10  IPOS Feb 2009 1  NBPR July 2009 1  

Rospatent End of 2009 --  

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Cumulative Number of PPH Requests

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

2006

.07

2006

.09

2006

.11

2007

.01

2007

.03

2007

.05

2007

.07

2007

.09

2007

.11

2008

.01

2008

.03

2008

.05

2008

.07

2008

.09

2008

.11

2009

.01

2009

.03

2009

.05

2009

.07

2009

.09

Cumulative total

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Number of PPH Requests by Technical Center

0100200300400500600700800900

TC1600

TC1700

TC2100

TC2400

TC2600

TC2800

TC3600

TC3700

Technical Center

PPH

Req

uest

sIPOSNBPRDPMADKPTOEPOIPAU CIPOKIPOUKIPOJPO

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Important PPH Metrics*

• Average First Action (FA) Pendency from Grant of PPH Request– Non-PPH

• 25 months (from filing date of application to FA)– PPH

• 2-3 months (from grant of PPH request** to FA)

• Overall Allowance Rate– PPH cases: 91%– Non-PPH cases: 44%

• Actions per disposal– PPH cases: 1.7– Non-PPH cases: 2.7

** application must have completed all its pre-exam processing and is ready for examination.

*As of November 2009

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Future Plans

• USPTO Action Plan to enhance PPH: define target numerical goals and develop global strategy to reach those goals

• Align PCT with PPH via the Trilateral pilot program• Conduct PPH awareness campaigns, internationally and

domestically

• Plurilateral PPH Cooperation– Streamline procedures– Share best practices and statistics– Provide users with one stop access to information

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The Expanding PPH Network

GPTO

IP Australia

Mar. 2008

DKPTO

UKIPO

KIPO

CIPO

EPOSep. 2008

ROSPATENT

IPOS

NBPR

Feb.

200

9

APO

Apr. 200

8

Sep. 2007

Jan. 2008

Mar. 2009Apr. 2007

Nov. 2008

May 2009

Apr. 2009

Jul. 2008

Apr. 2009 Jul. 2009

HPO

Jul. 2006

Jan.

200

8

Jul. 2

007

USPTO

: under consideration

: full implementation : pilot implementation

Jul. 2009

Oct

. 200

9

Nov. 2009

Aug.

200

9Jul. 2009

JPO

Oct. 2009

Oct. 2009

Jan 2010

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• Thank you