USPTO–CIPO Patent Prosecution Highway Made Permanent

Originally published March 22, 2011

As many patent practitioners are aware, substantial redundancy exists in the worldwide prosecution of patent applications. The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is intended to reduce this redundancy by allowing the patent office in a country of second filing to take advantage of the work of the patent office in the country of first filing. When a PPH alliance is in place, an office of second filing (OSF) can use the search results from the office of first filing (OFF) to accelerate their examination. Additionally, because only allowed claims from the OFF are eligible for examination in the OSF, claim amendments have usually already been made to distinguish over the relevant prior art, further accelerating prosecution of PPH applications.