What Are Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Programmes – And Should You Be Using Them?

PPH programmes are collaborative arrangements between two (bilateral) or more (multilateral) patent offices. Their objective is to accelerate the granting of a patent application filed in an office of second filing (or second application) under priority of a patent application or patent filed in an office of first filing (or first application).

In practice, the holder of both applications must file a request for acceleration under the PPH in the office of the second application, provided of course that:

• 1. that office is a partner office with which the office of first filing has signed a PPH agreement;
• 2. the request for acceleration under the PPH is filed with the office of second filing before examination3 starts (the request may be filed at the time of filing the second application or after, so long as it's before examination begins); and