The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Japan Patent Office (JPO) intend to further improve their Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programs.
The PPH is a fast-track examination framework that enables users to make a simple request to accelerate examination of a patent application pending at a second office (office of later examination) when a corresponding application has been found allowable/patentable by a first office (office of earlier examination).
In order to further improve the user experience under the PPH, the two Offices each set a target deadline for issuing office actions for PPH applications and strive to meet the target as they examine each application, thus making it easier for users to predict the timing of examination.
More specifically, to ensure that the original goals of the PPH are achieved, both Offices set the targets below for the extent to which examination is accelerated under the program, i.e. time taken to issue an office action under the PPH after the examiner can start examination upon a PPH request or the applicant’s response to an office action.
As the original initiators of the innovative PPH scheme, and with almost 30% of all PPH applications in the world having been filed with the JPO or the USPTO in 2020, the two Offices will continue to lead efforts to promote and further improve the PPH.
This improvement to the Offices’ already successful PPH programs took effect 01 January 2022 and will be reviewed on an annual basis.
Targets set by the two Offices
JPO
Average period from completion of PPH request to first office action | within three (3) months |
Average period from applicant’s response to subsequent office action | within three (3) months |
USPTO
Average period from completion of PPH request to first office action on the merits | within three (3) months |
Average period from applicant’s response to the first office action on the merits to subsequent office action | within three (3) months |
(Note 1) The “completion of PPH request” is the point in time when the formal processing (i.e. eligibility check) of a PPH request is completed. At the USPTO, the expression represents the mail date of a decision on petition granting special status under the PPH.
(Note 2) The starting point of “applicant’s response” is the point in time when the formal processing of the applicant’s response is completed and the application is forwarded to the examiner for the next office action.