The 'Patent Prosecution Highway' PPH is a system used by certain related national patent offices to speed patent application processing. The Patent Prosecution Highway is an important tool used to accelerate examinations of patent applications where a corresponding patnet application in a partner foreign patent office has received a favorable examination. If an examination is a first patent office yields patentable claims, the you may speed up examinations pending in other participating patent offices. For example, if the Russian patent office indicates allowable claims, in a copending application, an applicant may request the (PPH request) United States patent office to examine a similar patent application out of turn in an expedited examination process. Presently, several countries are partners together for purposes of expediting patent examination via the Patent Prosecution Highway. Countries presently having patent prosecution highway agreements include: Australia, Canada, Denmark, European Patent Office, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Russia, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States. You May Qualify for Expedited Examination If you have a patent application for the same invention pending more than one of these nations and you receive at least one allowable claim in a PPH nation, you may ask for accelerated patent examination the other nations. In this way, you can speed up your applications which are part of an international patent strategy. |