Patent Law Practice Center

Life in the Fast Lane – Use of the Patent Prosecution Highway

Michael Davitz, Partner at Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider and  Practice Center Contributor, recently sent in this article he wrote with colleague’s Drew Schulte and Jia Li discussing the Patent Prosecution Highway and the value that can be achieved for those practitioners willing to explore the new program.

In July of 2006, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) established a trial program with the Japanese Patent Office, where an applicant with an allowed claim in one office could fast track the examination of a corresponding application filed in the other patent office.  This program paved the way for what would become known as the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH).[1] Today, the PPH includes patent offices in many of the world’s largest economies and is growing.[2] Despite the USPTO’s estimate of a 94% overall allowance rate for PPH applications as compared to 44% for non-PPH cases when the United States is the Office of Second Filing,[3] practitioners have continued to be wary of using the new program, especially when it comes to leveraging entire patent portfolios.[4]

In part, the hesitation to embrace the PPH reflects a legitimate fear of comparatively untested methods when it comes to patent prosecution. Although patent practitioners deal every day with cutting-edge technology, which innovates constantly, they are often reluctant to try new approaches as patent prosecution is fraught with dangerous liability.[5] However, for those practitioners willing to explore this new avenue, the PPH offers potentially great rewards in terms of easier and faster prosecutions which can provide value-added leverage for a client’s patent portfolios. (more…)