Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)

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Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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Background
2006 Cross filing Applications among IP5 Offices
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PPH Fast Track Examination of Applications

• What is PPH?
• When claims are determined to be allowable in the
  Office of First Filing (OFF), a corresponding
  application filed in the Office of Second Filing
  (OSF) may be advanced out of turn.
• What is the Purpose of PPH?
• OSF can utilize the search and examination
  results of the OFF thereby avoiding duplication
  of work and expediting the examination process in
  the OSF.

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What Are the Benefits of PPH?

• PPH Benefits for Applicant
• Provides quicker patentability determination in
  multiple jurisdictions.
• Decreases costs of prosecution.

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What Are the Benefits of PPH?

• PPH Benefits for Offices
• Avoid redundant work by reuse of OFF work product
• Claims reduced in number and narrowed in focus to
  what was previously allowed
• Reduced Pendency

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PPH Requirements

• Claim Correspondence
• All claims in each U.S. application must
  sufficiently correspond to the allowable claims
  in the application in the OFF.

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PPH Requirements (contd)

• Qualifying Applications
• Current PPH Programs, generally speaking
• Paris priority applications
• PCT Bridge filings
• Certain non-binding work product e.g. EPOs EESR
• Future PCT-PPH Pilot
• PCT-PPH pilot among the Trilateral Offices
• Positive international search reports, written
  opinions, and international preliminary
  examination reports

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Current PPH Programs

• PPH Pilot to Full implementation
• Japan (JPO)
• Effective on January 4, 2008
• Korea (KIPO)
• Effective on January 29, 2009

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Current PPH Pilot Programs

• Current Pilots
• Australia (IPAU)
• Canada (CIPO)
• Denmark (DKPTO)
• European Patent Office (EPO)
• Finland (NBPR)
• Germany (DPMA)
• Singapore (IPOS)
• United Kingdom (UK IPO)
• Rospatent (in discussions)
• Trilateral PCT-PPH (January 2010)

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PPH Requests
First Office Start Date Requests (as of 1 Nov. 2009)  
JPO July 2006 1657 278 (Pilot) 1379 (Perm)  
UKIPO Sept 2007 69  
KIPO Jan. 2008 351 134 (Pilot) 217 (Perm) Total
CIPO Jan. 2008 21 2,164
IPAU April 2008 24  
EPO Sept. 2008 21  
DKPTO Nov. 2008 9  
DPMA April 2009 10  
IPOS Feb 2009 1  
NBPR July 2009 1  
Rospatent End of 2009 --  
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Cumulative Number of PPH Requests
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Number of PPH Requests by Technical Center
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Important PPH Metrics
As of November 2009

• Average First Action (FA) Pendency from Grant of
  PPH Request
• Non-PPH
• 25 months (from filing date of application to FA)
• PPH
• 2-3 months (from grant of PPH request to FA)
• Overall Allowance Rate
• PPH cases 91
• Non-PPH cases 44
• Actions per disposal
• PPH cases 1.7
• Non-PPH cases 2.7

application must have completed all its
pre-exam processing and is ready for examination.
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Future Plans

• USPTO Action Plan to enhance PPH define target
  numerical goals and develop global strategy to
  reach those goals
• Align PCT with PPH via the Trilateral pilot
  program
• Conduct PPH awareness campaigns, internationally
  and domestically
• Plurilateral PPH Cooperation
• Streamline procedures
• Share best practices and statistics
• Provide users with one stop access to information

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The Expanding PPH Network
IP Australia
UKIPO
ROSPATENT
Jul. 2007
DKPTO
Oct. 2009
Sep. 2007
May 2009
Nov. 2008
Nov. 2009
Apr. 2008
Oct. 2009
Jul. 2008
USPTO
NBPR
Jul. 2009
EPO
Sep. 2008
Apr. 2009
Jul. 2006
Jan 2010
APO
Jan. 2008
Jan. 2008
Jul. 2009
JPO
Oct. 2009
Apr. 2007
Mar. 2008
Mar. 2009
Feb. 2009
Apr. 2009
Jul. 2009
CIPO
Aug. 2009
full implementation
GPTO
IPOS
pilot implementation
KIPO
HPO
under consideration
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• Thank you