Tips and Tricks: Filing a PPH Request in the United States
The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program can be an excellent way to more quickly move a patent to issue. Via PPH, participating patent offices may expedite examination of applications which have at least one claim allowed in another PPH patent office. A listing of participating PPH offices may be found here.
U.S. patent applications eligible for PPH must meet the following requirements:
1. Notify your legal counsel early
3. Provide a full listing of the OEE claims in English to your legal counsel
U.S. patent applications eligible for PPH must meet the following requirements:
- At least one claim in a corresponding application must be allowed at an eligible* Office of Earlier Examination (OEE)
- The U.S. application must have the same earliest priority date as the OEE application
- Substantive examination of the U.S. application must not have started
1. Notify your legal counsel early
- A U.S. PPH request must be filed after at least one claim has been allowed in an OEE and before substantive examination of the U.S. application has started
- Once at least one claim has been allowed in an OEE, discuss with your legal counsel if you wish to apply for PPH status as soon as possible
- If the OEE work product is not in English, you will also need to provide a translated copy of the OEE work product which shows that the claims are allowed
- If the OEE work product needs to be translated to English, machine or manual translations are accepted (translations do not have to be verified)
- Examples of OEE work products may include International Search Reports, Decisions to grant a patent, and Extended European Search Reports
3. Provide a full listing of the OEE claims in English to your legal counsel
- A U.S. PPH request requires that the OEE claims correspond with U.S. claims
- An English listing of the allowed OEE claims will help your legal counsel to properly fill out a claim correspondence table in the PPH request form