Easier to apply for fast-track patent procedure in 2014

The Global PPH agreement entered into force on 6 January 2014. The signatories include the patent offices of Finland, the USA, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Spain, Portugal, Israel, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Norway, and the Nordic Patent Institute (NPI).

For Finnish applicants, the Global PPH offers an opportunity to request speeded-up processing by a further eight authorities: Great Britain, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, and the Nordic Patent Institute (NPI).

Finland already has effective PPH agreements with the other Global PPH parties, but these are now being replaced by GPPH agreements. Reciprocally, the system makes it possible to file a PPH request with the Finnish office, on the basis of an examination carried out by any of the above patent authorities.

The GPPH parties have agreed on uniform requirements for the PPH requests, and have created common instructions for their processing.

The Global PPH is based on the previous PPH (MOTTAINAI) system, where you can file a PPH request with another patent office on the basis of the patent claims found allowable by any of the participating parties, regardless of which office was the first to receive the application. The PPH includes both national and PCT applications.

More information about the Global PPH is available on the PPH website of the Japan Patent Office http://www.jpo.go.jp/ppph-portal/globalpph.htm and on the PRH website http://www.prh.fi/en/patentit/pph/global_pph.html

What is the Patent Prosecution Highway?

The idea of the PPH is to fast track the processing of patent applications, and to reduce the amount of overlapping examination work carried out by different patent offices. The PPH is a bilateral agreement between two national patent authorities. It provides applicants with faster processing of applications already examined by one participating party.

An applicant may request fast-track processing by another office on the basis of a Finnish patent application or a PCT application examined by the PRH, if the PRH has already found the claims allowable. Reciprocally, if the other office has found the claims allowable, you may request speeded-up processing from the PRH. At the U.S. Patent Office, the processing time from PPH request to final decision has been three times faster compared with the average processing time for regular applications.

The PRH has bilateral PPH agreements with the patent authorities of China, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Information about the agreements and instructions how to use the PPH system are available on the website www.prh.fi/pph

For further information, please contact:

Mr Juha Rekola
Development Director
firstname.lastname@prh.fi
tel. 029 509 5504

Ms Hanna Aho
Patent Examiner
firstname.lastname@prh.fi
tel. 029 509 5488