Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH): An Initiative For Accelerated Patent Prosecution

What is PPH?

PPH stands for Patent Prosecution Highway. The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is an initiative for providing accelerated patent prosecution procedures by sharing information between some of the patent offices. The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) speeds up the examination process for corresponding applications filed in participating intellectual property offices. It permits each participating patent office to benefit from the work previously done by the other patent office, with the goal of reducing examination workload and improving patent quality

Under PPH, participating patent offices have agreed that when an applicant receives a final ruling from any of one of the first patent office and in that, at least one claim is allowed, the applicant may request fast track examination of corresponding claim(s) in a corresponding patent application that is pending in a second patent office. PPH leverages fast-track examination procedures already in place