On January 6, 2015, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) started a 3-year PPH pilot program, which allows fast-track patent examination by one examining office using the examination results already available from another examining office.
The PPH enables an applicant whose claims have found to be patentable/allowable by one office to file a corresponding application with a PPH partner office to be processed in an accelerated manner. This can save time and money for the applicant.
A PPH request can be based on a positive written opinion (WO) or international preliminary examination report (IPER) during the international phase or on a positive result during a national examination where one or more claims are indicated as being patentable/allowable.
PPH requests based on CIPO work products may be filed with the EPO on or after 6 January 2015.
Details of the CIPO – EPO PPH pilot program may be found by following the links:
http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/official-journal/information-epo/archive/20141219.html
More information about the global PPH is available at the following:
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/pph/index.jsp