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United States Patent and Trademark Office – www.uspto.gov
Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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Background
2006 Cross filing Applications among IP5 Offices
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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.
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What Are the Benefits of PPH?
PPH Benefits for Applicant
• Provides quicker patentability determination in multiple jurisdictions.
• Decreases costs of prosecution.
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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.
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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
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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 2,164
IPAU 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
20
06
.07
20
06
.09
20
06
.11
20
07
.01
20
07
.03
20
07
.05
20
07
.07
20
07
.09
20
07
.11
20
08
.01
20
08
.03
20
08
.05
20
08
.07
20
08
.09
20
08
.11
20
09
.01
20
09
.03
20
09
.05
20
09
.07
20
09
.09
Cumulative total
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Number of PPH Requests by Technical Center
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
TC1600
TC1700
TC2100
TC2400
TC2600
TC2800
TC3600
TC3700
Technical Center
PP
H R
equ
ests
IPOS
NBPR
DPMA
DKPTO
EPO
IPAU
CIPO
KIPO
UKIPO
JPO
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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
. 20
09
APO
Apr. 20
08
Sep
. 2007
Jan. 2008
Mar. 2009
Apr. 2007
Nov. 2008
May 2009
Apr. 2009
Jul. 2008
Apr. 2009 Jul. 2009
HPO
Jul. 2006
Jan.
200
8
Jul.
2007
USPTO
: under consideration
: full implementation
: pilot implementation
Jul. 2009
Oct
. 20
09No
v. 2009
Au
g. 2
009
Jul. 2009
JPO
Oct. 2009
Oct. 2009
Jan 2010
16
• Thank you
