Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)
What is PPH?
Unlike Global PPH the PPH is a bilateral agreement between two intellectual property offices. It provides applicants with fast-track patent examination procedures to obtain corresponding patents faster and more efficiently. It will also permit each office to make use of the work previously done by the other office and reduce duplication. Thus, the PPH initiative will reduce the examination workload and improve patent quality.
PPH agreements enable patent offices to exchange information and speed up the processing of patent applications. Through these agreements, a patent applicant can request accelerated processing at the Office of second filing (OSF), if the claims in a corresponding application filed with that office have already been allowed by the Office of first filing (OFF).
(Further information: http://www.jpo.go.jp/ppph-portal/index.htm)
Important notes:
Both Global PPH and PPH are voluntary options for patent applicants. The intellectual property offices are not obliged to accept the opinion of an other intellectual property office involved in the cooperation, and the intellectual property offices are always solely responsible for their decisions. At the HIPO the substantive examination conducted is based on the Hungarian patent law and examination guidelines.
Chinese-Hungarian PPH
On 12 October 2015 a bilateral agreement on mutual acceleration of granting patents was signed by the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) and the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO). On the basis of the agreement the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) project has started between the two offices on 1 March 2016.
Request for Accelerated Examination at the HIPO under the Patent Prosecution Highway Program between SIPO and HIPO
The Chinese-Hungarian PPH provides applicants with fast-track patent examination procedures to obtain corresponding patents faster and more efficiently. It will also permit each office to make use of the work previously done by the other office and reduce duplication. Patent applicants can request accelerated processing of their applications at anyone of the offices if their claims have been found to be acceptable by the other office.
Accelerated examination at the HIPO under PPH between HIPO and SIPO may be requested taking into account the Guidelines and using the following documents:
Relevant annexes (Documents to fill in are Annex 1 and Annex 2):
The Guidelines and the Annexes can be downloaded in Chinese language:
The official documents can be downloaded:
In case of a Chinese national application:
The China Patent Inquiry System - SIPO
In case of a PCT application:
Patentscope - WIPO