What is the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)?

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a program under which applicants who receive a favorable determination that at least one claim is allowable or patentable from one participating IP office may request fast-track examination of corresponding claims in a corresponding pending application at another participating IP office. Filing a PPH request at the USPTO requires no fee.

The PPH pilot program started in July 2006. It began as a small set of bilateral arrangements and has since expanded to cover most of the world's major patent offices through a combination of bilateral agreements and multilateral frameworks.

How PPH works

Patent offices in different countries frequently duplicate the same prior art search and patentability analysis when examining the same invention. PPH reduces this duplication by sharing examination information between participating offices, so the office of later examination (OLE) can build on a positive result from the office of earlier examination (OEE) instead of repeating the work.

One point to understand clearly: PPH provides accelerated examination but not guaranteed approval. Each national or regional office examines the application under its own law. A foreign allowance is useful context for the second examination, but it does not bind the examining office and does not prevent rejections on any available ground.

Types of PPH programs

Bilateral PPH

The earliest PPH programs were country-pair agreements. The USPTO still maintains bilateral PPH programs with Bahrain, Czech Republic, France, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Philippines, Romania, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan, each using a country-specific petition form.

IP5 PPH

IP5 PPH is a program among five major patent offices: CNIPA (China), EPO (Europe), JPO (Japan), KIPO (Korea), and the USPTO (United States).

Global PPH

Global PPH launched on January 6, 2014, alongside IP5 PPH, replacing earlier country-specific PPH forms with a single standardized form (SB/20GLBL) at all participating offices. Over 30 offices now participate in Global PPH, including CNIPA, EPO, JPO, KIPO, and the USPTO. Under Global PPH, unified criteria allow requests at any participating office using work products from any other participating office. This means that an allowable determination from any single participating office can serve as the foundation for PPH requests in every other participating jurisdiction where corresponding applications are pending.

PCT-PPH

PCT-PPH allows applicants to leverage international-phase work products, including written opinions from an ISA or IPEA and international preliminary examination reports, to request accelerated national-phase examination at a participating office. Where a national allowance from a foreign office is not yet available, a positive written opinion from the PCT international phase can serve as the triggering work product for PPH requests as applications enter the national phase.

Eligibility for PPH at the USPTO

Two core conditions drive eligibility:

1. At least one allowable claim from the earlier office. Eligibility for PPH arises when an applicant receives a ruling from a first patent office that at least one claim is allowable. The corresponding application can be one filed at another participating office, or a PCT application for which a participating office acted as the International Searching Authority or International Preliminary Examining Authority.
2. Corresponding claims. The applicant may then request fast-track examination of the corresponding claims in the later application.

The correspondence requirement means the U.S. claims cannot be materially broader in scope than the claims found allowable abroad. In practice, applicants often need to review and adjust their pending U.S. claims before filing a PPH request to ensure correspondence is clear.

How to file at the USPTO

PPH requests at the USPTO must be filed electronically. Global PPH and IP5 PPH requests use USPTO request form SB/20GLBL. Bilateral program requests use the country-specific form for the relevant partner office (for example, SB/20FR for France or SB/20MX for Mexico).

PCT applications: a timing detail to get right

PCT applicants entering the U.S. national phase under 35 U.S.C. 371 who want immediate PPH processing must include an express request to begin national stage processing under 35 U.S.C. 371(f). Without that express request in the submission, processing is deferred until the PCT period expires, which negates the pendency benefit.

The pendency benefit

At the USPTO, PPH applications are docketed to maintain approximately half the first-action pendency of non-PPH applications in the same technology area. The actual reduction varies by technology center and overall backlog, but the acceleration is consistent and represents a meaningful benefit for applicants who need U.S. rights quickly while corresponding prosecution is underway abroad.

Practical notes for practitioners

• PPH is a petition, not a right. The USPTO reviews and grants or denies each request. If a request is denied for correspondence failures or formality defects, the application does not receive the PPH acceleration. Review the OEE's allowable claims carefully before filing and confirm that the pending U.S. claims genuinely correspond to them.
• Each office applies its own law. A granted PPH request accelerates examination; it does not constrain what rejections the U.S. examiner may raise. Issues not raised by the OEE may surface during U.S. examination, including rejections on grounds the OEE did not consider.
• PCT-PPH requires an active filing step. The ISA or IPEA written opinion does not automatically trigger PPH processing. The applicant must file a PCT-PPH request in the national phase with documentation that maps the pending U.S. claims to the claims or features positively assessed in the written opinion.
• Include the 371(f) request at national stage entry. For PCT applications, include the 35 U.S.C. 371(f) express request in the national stage entry filing itself. Adding it afterward delays the start of PPH processing.
• Sequential use across jurisdictions is permitted. A single favorable OEE determination can support separate PPH requests in each additional participating office where corresponding applications are pending. There is no single gateway; each request is filed independently with the relevant national or regional office.
• Global PPH eliminates the need to check country pairs. Before Global PPH, practitioners had to verify which bilateral agreements were in place between each pair of offices. Under Global PPH, a single framework applies across all participating offices, which simplifies strategy when prosecuting the same invention in many jurisdictions simultaneously.