Most patent applicants wait years for examination across multiple countries, pay attorney fees for repetitive prosecution, and watch competitors potentially beat them to market. These lengthy timelines typically plague those who don’t deploy sophisticated prosecution strategies from the outset, though experienced counsel with established PPH methodologies can dramatically compress them. Yet nearly 97,400 applications filed with PPH petitions at the USPTO alone demonstrate that a better approach is possible. Once you secure an allowable claim in one patent office, you can leverage that work to accelerate examination across 55 participating offices worldwide. The catch? Only about 2% of applicants actually use PPH, leaving massive efficiency gains on the table.
Quick overview: What is the Patent Prosecution Highway?
The Patent Prosecution Highway is a set of bilateral and multilateral agreements between patent offices worldwide that enables applicants to request accelerated examination in a “second” office once a “first” office has determined that at least one claim is patentable or allowable. Think of it as a fast-track lane that opens up when you’ve already done the hard work of getting positive results somewhere else.
It’s important to understand that the Patent Prosecution Highway program is a procedural tool, not a separate type of patent or a distinct filing route. PPH applies to existing patent applications, whether filed under the Paris Convention or the PCT. You still need to file your applications through normal channels; PPH simply accelerates the time it takes for those applications to be examined.
The first PPH pilot began in 2006 as a bilateral agreement between the Japan Patent Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Since then, it has expanded into a global PPH network that covers the USPTO, the European Patent Office, the JPO, the CNIPA (China), the KIPO (Korea), and dozens of other offices worldwide.
The key benefit in one sentence: faster examination and earlier decisions in the second patent office, often cutting many months or even years from the standard timeline, but only when you properly structure the initial application and PPH request with strategic foresight. Weak patents that help competitors can get accelerated just as easily as strong patents that deter them. The difference lies in the quality of preparation and strategic claim drafting before you ever file a PPH request.
How the PPH system works in practice
Understanding the prosecution highway workflow is straightforward once you break it down into its core steps. Here’s the basic sequence:
- File your first application at a participating patent office (this becomes your Office of Earlier Examination, or OEE)
- Obtain a positive work product or allowance where at least one claim is indicated as patentable
- File or already have a corresponding application at a second patent office (the Office of Later Examination, or OLE)
- Submit a PPH request to the OLE, relying on the positive work product from the OEE
Figure 1: High-level flowchart of the Patent Prosecution Highway process. An application first receives an allowable claim in the Office of Earlier Examination (left). The applicant then files a PPH request in the Office of Later Examination (right), which accelerates examination of the corresponding application by leveraging the work already done by the first office—source: USPTO.
The terminology matters here. The “office of earlier examination” issues the favorable determination, whether that’s a notice of allowance, a positive office action, or a PCT work product indicating allowable claims. The “office of later examination” is where you’re requesting the fast-track examination procedures based on that earlier positive result.
Two main PPH frameworks
There are two principal frameworks that most applicants encounter:
Conventional or “national” PPH relies on national work products from regular patent applications. If you filed a patent application at the USPTO and received an allowance, you can use that to accelerate prosecution at the EPO, JPO, or other participating offices.
PCT-PPH is based on positive written opinion documents or international preliminary examination report results from PCT authorities. When your international application receives a favorable assessment from an international searching authority or international preliminary examining authority, you can leverage that work product at national phase offices.
Here’s what’s crucial to understand: the second office does not simply rubber-stamp the first office’s decision. The OLE conducts its own substantive examination but often begins with earlier search reports and analyses. This is where the time savings come from; patent examiners don’t have to reinvent the wheel when useful work previously conducted by another office already exists.
Types of PPH programs
There are two principal types of PPH that applicants commonly use, and each has slightly different eligibility requirements and documentation needs. Understanding which pathway applies to your situation is the first step in making a successful PPH request.
Regular (Paris-route) PPH
Regular PPH applies when you have an earlier national or regional application where a participating office has found at least one claim to be allowable. This typically involves:
- A first national or regional patent application (not a PCT application).
- At least one claim is indicated as novel, having inventive step, and possessing industrial applicability.
- A corresponding patent application filed at another participating office.
For example, if your applications filed at the Japan Patent Office result in an allowance in early 2024, you could use that positive result to request fast-track examination at the USPTO, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, or other participating patent offices with which Japan has PPH agreements.
PCT-PPH
PCT-PPH allows applicants to leverage positive PCT work products to accelerate national stage applications. The qualifying work products include:
- Written Opinion of the International Searching Authority (WO/ISA)
- Written Opinion of the International Preliminary Examining Authority (WO/IPEA)
- International Preliminary Examination Report (IPER)
Each of these must indicate that at least one claim meets the requirements for novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability.
Consider a practical example: you file a PCT application in 2023, and the European Patent Office, acting as your international searching authority, issues a positive written opinion finding your central claims patentable. When you enter the national phase at the USPTO or JPO in 2024, you can submit a PPH request based on that favorable PCT work product.
Office participation varies
As of 2023, 55 national and regional patent offices participate in the Global PPH network. The PPH network includes major offices such as the USPTO, EPO, JPO, CNIPA, KIPO, the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, IP Australia, the Israel Patent Office, and the Austrian Patent Office, as well as many regional offices across Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
By January 2014, the program transitioned from bilateral agreements to standardized plurilateral frameworks through the Global PPH pilot and IP5 PPH pilot, which use common rules and a single request form. Brazil joined the Global PPH in 2024, transitioning from a bilateral pilot with the USPTO to the multilateral framework. Coverage evolves as bilateral agreements are renewed, expanded, or occasionally discontinued.
Why applicants use PPH (benefits and strategic use cases)
The main attraction of the patent prosecution highway program is significantly faster examination and earlier clarity on grant prospects across multiple key markets. When you’re building a global patent portfolio, time is often as valuable as the intellectual property protection itself. However, speed without strategic preparation from experienced patent counsel results in weak patents that become roadmaps for competitors to design around, which is why a sophisticated PPH strategy must be combined with proper claim drafting from the outset.
Time savings
The acceleration can be dramatic when combined with sophisticated prosecution strategies. PPH applications at the USPTO receive a first office action in about 7.5 months on average, compared to over 22 months for similar non-PPH applications, roughly cutting the wait by two-thirds when properly executed.
In smaller offices, the benefits can be even more pronounced. Taiwan’s IPO reported approximately 1.4 months to first action for PPH cases versus 8.3 months for others in 2024, an 83% reduction in wait time.
Figure 2: Average time to first examination action (months) under normal vs. PPH processing, showing data from multiple contexts. In the USPTO, a first action on the merits for a standard application now averages around 20–23 months, whereas PPH cases see a first action in ~7.5 months. Across the IP5 offices (US, Europe, Japan, China, Korea) in FY2022, first-action pendency averaged roughly 16 months, compared with 4.8 months with PPH. Smaller offices see similar benefits: Taiwan’s IPO reported ~1.4 months to first action for PPH cases vs. 8.3 months for others in 2024.
Consider the business impact of working with experienced patent counsel who strategically deploy PPH. Instead of waiting until 2027 or 2028 for multiple jurisdictions to independently examine your applications, you could have patents issued across key markets by 2026 through sophisticated PPH coordination. For technology companies facing upcoming investment rounds or IPOs, showing granted patents in the US, Japan, China, and Europe, rather than just pending applications, provides substantially greater assurance to investors about the strength of the IP portfolio.
In specific USPTO technology centers with extreme backlogs, normal wait times have approached 5 years for those who don’t use sophisticated acceleration strategies such as PPH. In fast-moving industries like software, medical devices, and electrical systems, a five-year pendency can render a patent valueless by the time it’s granted. Strategic PPH deployment with experienced patent counsel can compress this to under 1.5 years, ensuring patents are granted while the technology remains commercially relevant.
Cost efficiencies
Faster prosecution translates directly into cost savings when properly executed. PPH cases reach allowance with slightly fewer office actions on average than non-PPH cases when claims are adequately prepared for multi-jurisdictional examination.
U.S. data from 2015 showed PPH applications had an 84% allowance rate, compared with 68% for regular applications, and averaged about 2.9 office actions to allowance, compared with 3.1 for others. More recent analyses indicate the allowance rate gap persists at approximately 10 percentage points higher for PPH.
Taiwan’s experience is illustrative: PPH applications had a 93% grant rate, compared with approximately 80% for standard applications, and a “direct grant” rate of 26%, compared with the usual 7%. The average number of office actions for PPH cases was 0.77, compared with 1.03 for other cases, indicating that PPH cases frequently obtained grants without requiring a second round of prosecution.
Fewer office actions mean:
- Lower attorney response costs across all jurisdictions.
- Reduced translation expenses for claim amendments.
- Fewer Requests for Continued Examination (RCE) fees.
- Less paralegal time managing prosecution.
Importantly, PPH has no official fee in most offices, whereas alternative acceleration options may require significant fees. The USPTO charges nothing for a PPH request, while its Track One prioritized examination requires roughly $4,000 for large entities.
However, the cost savings only materialize when your initial applications are strategically prepared with the PPH framework in mind from the outset. Poor claim drafting or inadequate prior art analysis in the first office can cascade into expensive prosecution across all jurisdictions, eliminating the efficiency gains PPH promises. This is why working with patent counsel experienced in international PPH strategy is essential; the upfront investment in sophisticated preparation prevents costly repairs across multiple jurisdictions.
Strategic coordination
PPH enables applicants to harmonize claim scope across countries, simplifying global enforcement later. When your granted patents have consistent claim language, licensing discussions become more straightforward, and potential infringers face a more unified threat.
This coordination supports:
Licensing negotiations where you can point to consistent global protection. An investor or licensee can evaluate patent coverage without parsing significantly different claim sets across jurisdictions, potentially increasing perceived portfolio value.
Fundraising or M&A due diligence where investors want to see granted rights. A granted patent represents a more tangible asset than a pending application. Having several granted patents with aligned claims across key markets suggests the invention was vetted by multiple examiners, arguably reinforcing its validity.
Enforcement planning that leverages consistent claims to simplify litigation strategy. If a competitor infringes, you can pursue parallel litigation in different countries with consistent infringement arguments, eliminating loopholes where claims differ substantively across jurisdictions.
Patent offices have reported that PPH improves examination quality by allowing examiners to consult prior art found by other offices. When two examiners in different jurisdictions both grant similar claims, it strengthens the patent’s position against validity challenges, though this doesn’t guarantee legal strength in litigation.
Business-driven timing
Certain business situations require patents to be granted quickly, not just eventually. With sophisticated claim drafting and prosecution strategy, PPH becomes a strategic tool to meet these timing imperatives:
Product launches and market entry: Companies often prefer patent numbers in hand when launching products to deter copycats and enhance marketing. If a U.S. startup plans to enter Europe with new technology, getting a European patent granted via PPH before the product launch provides valuable defensive positioning.
Investor and shareholder expectations: Startups going through funding rounds tout their IP portfolios. An IPO or venture capital investment may hinge on patent strength. Fast-tracking foreign applications via PPH means showing actual granted patents in major markets, not just “patent pending” notices, especially important for technology companies, where patent protection is a key asset for electrical systems, mechanical innovations, and software inventions.
Competitive response: If a competitor is close to launching similar technology, obtaining a patent grant quickly via PPH gives you the option to pursue legal action or negotiate a licensing agreement from a position of strength. Enforcing a patent application is impossible; an issued patent is required to stop an infringer. In our first-to-file system, competitors may already be working on similar solutions, making speed essential.
Real-world scenario: A clean-energy startup with breakthrough battery technology faces a large corporation rumored to be developing a similar technology, while seeking a Series B investment and planning to roll out its product in 2 years. They obtain an EPO allowance in 2025 and use PPH to obtain fast-track allowances in the U.S., China, and Korea by mid-2026. They enter investor discussions with multiple granted patents (improving valuation), and if the competitor approaches the market, the startup has issued patents to defend its position.
PPH versus other acceleration options
Understanding how PPH compares to other acceleration mechanisms helps you choose the right tool:
| Mechanism | Key Feature | When to Use PPH Instead |
| US Track One | Paid prioritized examination (~$4,000 fee, targets two examinations within 12 months) | When you already have a positive foreign work product (PPH is free and provides comparable acceleration) |
| US Age-Based Acceleration | Free acceleration when the inventor is 65+ years old | When you have a positive foreign work product, but the inventor is under 65 (PPH works regardless of age) |
| EPO PACE | Free accelerated examination on request | When you can leverage a prior positive examination from another office to guide the EPO |
| UKIPO Green Channel | Free acceleration for eco-friendly inventions | When your invention doesn’t qualify as “green,” but you have PPH-eligible work products |
PPH is technology-agnostic; any field can use it. You can sometimes combine strategies, though some offices have limits on overlapping special status.
Eligibility requirements and conditions for PPH
Although details vary by office and agreement, most PPH programmes share a common core of eligibility criteria that must be met before a request is accepted. Understanding these requirements upfront will save you from rejected requests and wasted time.
Baseline requirements
Positive first office determination: There must be at least one corresponding earlier application (national or PCT) at a participating office where at least one claim has been found patentable/allowable. You need a completed examination (or PCT search) that yielded an allowable claim with explicit coverage of patentability, novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability.
Participating office relationship: The second application must be filed in an office that has a PPH agreement with the first office. Additionally, the applications must have a recognized relationship, typically sharing the same earliest priority date or being the same PCT application entering different national phases.
Claim correspondence: The claims of the second application must “sufficiently correspond” to the allowed claims from the first application. In practice, claims in the OLE must be identical to or narrower in scope than claims permitted by the OEE. You typically must amend the claims in the OLE to match the allowed ones. New dependent claims that add further limitations are usually acceptable (they’re narrower), but wholly new claims or the omission of critical features break the correspondence requirement. Most offices require a claims correspondence table mapping each OLE claim to one or more allowed OEE claims.
Timing restrictions: The PPH request must be made before substantive examination begins in the OLE. If the second office’s examiner has already started examining the application (issued a first office action on the merits), it’s generally too late to request PPH. Some offices allow the request if no substantive action has yet been issued, for example, a restriction requirement in the U.S. doesn’t count as substantive examination. Monitor application status and file the PPH request early, ideally right after filing the second application or when entering the national phase.
Formal documentation: A complete PPH request typically includes:
- A filled request form (each office has specific forms, e.g., USPTO uses form SB/20 for global PPH).
- Copies of the OEE work product showing allowed claims.
- Translations, if required (when work products aren’t in the OLE’s official language).
- Copies of prior art documents cited by the OEE examiner.
- Claims correspondence table clearly showing claim scope alignment.
- Identification of PCT work product for PCT-PPH cases.
The EPO uses Form 1009 for PPH requests and may retrieve documents via WIPO CASE or Global Dossier systems if available.
Office-specific requirements
The USPTO requires that PPH requests for PCT national-stage applications include an express request to start national-phase examination early under 35 U.S.C. 371(f). A September 2023 USPTO review found that only 50% of PPH requests in national-stage filings used the correct form, meaning half of those cases weren’t getting examined early despite having PPH status. This underscores the importance of procedural compliance; always ensure you have the latest forms and instructions.
The EPO integrates PPH into its PACE framework. When you file a PPH request at the EPO, you’re automatically put on the PACE track. The EPO insists on proper claims correspondence; if a claim is amended to be narrower than the OEE’s allowed claim, it should ideally be made dependent on a claim of similar scope to the OEE claim.
PPH does not apply to USPTO design patents, reissue applications, reexamination proceedings, or provisional patent applications; it applies only to regular utility patent applications.
Common rejection reasons
PPH requests are frequently refused due to:
- Missing or incorrect translations: If the first office’s actions or claims are in a foreign language and you didn’t provide the required translations, the request may be refused or delayed.
- Incomplete claim correspondence: If you have claims that aren’t clearly mapped to allowed claims, or if claims are broader than what was allowed, PPH can be denied.
- Examination already started: Filing the PPH request after the first office action was mailed results in dismissal.
- Incorrect forms or formalities: Using outdated request forms, failing to sign properly, or omitting required information results in denial.
- Priority linkage unclear: If the relationship between applications isn’t obvious or documented, provide additional proof showing the priority connection.
If a PPH request is found defective, some offices allow it to be corrected. Monitor your PPH request status after filing; many offices indicate special status on the application’s database. The USPTO’s Patent Center will list if an application is “Advanced out of turn by PPH” once granted.
What PPH can and cannot do for you
PPH is powerful but has clear limits. It speeds up examination but does not guarantee the outcome or harmonize substantive law across jurisdictions. Understanding both sides of this equation is essential for realistic expectations.
What you get with PPH
Accelerated examination: Once your PPH request is granted, your application is advanced out of turn in the examination queue. The USPTO aims to issue a first office action within 6 months of the PPH petition grant, as of 2026, with experienced practitioners often achieving this in 2–5 months through strategic preparation. The EPO treats PPH cases similarly to PACE, aiming to issue the first examination report within months when applications are correctly positioned. Your application effectively jumps ahead of the backlog of typical cases.
Earlier office actions and final decisions: A faster start means a speedier finish in most instances. Multiple offices participating in the “PPH eXtra” initiative set goals, such as issuing the following actions within 3 months of applicant responses. This accelerated cadence helps you reach final disposition significantly sooner.
Higher likelihood of allowance (statistically): PPH applications often enjoy allowance rates approximately 10 percentage points higher than non-PPH cases at the USPTO when combined with sophisticated claim drafting strategies. First-action allowances occur more frequently under PPH, about 20% versus approximately 14% for typical cases in past studies when applications are adequately prepared. An examiner working with strategically drafted claims may agree with the prior examiner’s assessment and issue an immediate notice of allowance.
Potential for consistent claims worldwide: PPH enables alignment of claims across jurisdictions. When everything goes well, you end up with patents granted in multiple countries with very similar claims, advantageous for enforcement and licensing.
Work-sharing benefits: Examiners can rely on OEE search results, which may surface prior art that an OLE examiner might not easily find. If prior art had been found and addressed in the first office, it would likely have been found and addressed there, reducing the risk of being blindsided by completely new references in the second office.
No additional fee: PPH incurs no government fees, unlike Track One or certain national acceleration petitions, which carry substantial fees.
What you do not get with PPH
No guarantee of allowance or patent grant: PPH doesn’t change the fact that each patent office applies its own laws and examination standards. An allowed claim in one country might still be rejected in another due to different prior art or stricter criteria. The EPO explicitly states that there is no compulsory recognition of another office’s work product, that the EPO examiner will reuse work only to the extent it’s useful, and that the EPO will apply European patent law independently. Be prepared to respond to substantive rejections as you usually would, in accordance with that country’s practices.
No changes to local rules: PPH doesn’t exempt you from local procedural or substantive rules, except for queue order. If you enter the EPO via PPH, you still must comply with EPO rules on amendments (added subject matter) and unity of invention. Local patentable subject matter exclusions also remain; you couldn’t get a U.S. allowance on a business method and use PPH to force allowance in a country that bans pure business methods.
No automatic acceptance of amendments or arguments: While examiners are encouraged to consider prior work, they form their own opinions. If you try to amend a claim in the OLE in a way that doesn’t “sufficiently correspond” to the allowed OEE claims, the examiner may refuse to enter that amendment under PPH rules. Once you’re on the PPH track, your flexibility to substantially change course is limited.
Not a filing mechanism or patent route: PPH presupposes that you’ve already filed via existing routes (Paris or PCT) in each country of interest. PPH overlays on those filings, if available, don’t replace them. PPH doesn’t give you extra patent term or affect patent term adjustment; it’s purely about when examination occurs.
Potential restrictions and limits: Some offices may have quotas or limited pilot timeframes, though under the current Global PPH, many such limits have been removed or expanded. Always confirm an office’s latest practice; some offices may exclude certain subject matters or have sunset dates for bilateral pilots.
A practical warning about claim scope
There’s a strategic risk in slavishly mirroring the first office’s claim amendments across the board. If your first office required significant claim narrowing to obtain allowance (perhaps due to prior art cited only there), you might unnecessarily limit yourself in other jurisdictions. Another office with different prior art might have allowed broader claims if you hadn’t preemptively narrowed to match the first office.
By using PPH, you lock in the narrowed scope across all countries for speed’s sake. For example, suppose the USPTO cited a U.S.-only patent, requiring you to add two additional limitations to obtain allowance. In Europe, that U.S. patent might not be relevant as prior art or considered problematic under EPO rules. Via normal prosecution, the EPO might have allowed a broader claim without those limitations. But if you use PPH and present the already-narrowed claim to the EPO, you’ve foregone that opportunity.
Therefore, evaluate the trade-off: is time saved worth giving up broader claim scope in some jurisdictions?
One approach: pursue PPH in key markets where speed is critical, but in one or two other markets, pursue broader claims through normal prosecution. Another approach: use PPH to get a patent quickly (for immediate needs), but file a follow-on application (continuation or divisional) to pursue broader claims outside the PPH. In the U.S., you could get an allowed claim via PPH, get the patent issued, and then have a continuation pending in which you attempt broader claims without PPH. This provides early patent protection now and a chance at broader claims later, though it increases filing and prosecution costs.
Not all patents are created equal. Weak patents don’t just fail to protect; they actively help competitors by providing roadmaps for designing around your protection. Strategic claim drafting that anticipates PPH use across multiple jurisdictions requires the experience and calibration that only come from years of prosecution in numerous patent offices and diverse technologies. This is where working with patent counsel experienced in international prosecution and PPH strategy, particularly those with track records at Fortune 500 companies and sophisticated Litigation Quality Patent® methodologies, becomes essential for maximizing both speed and patent strength.
Participating patent offices and where to find official information
The PPH network has expanded significantly over the past 15+ years and now covers most major patent offices worldwide. However, participation depends on agreements, and the network continues to evolve.
Major participating offices
The PPH’s multilateral programs (Global PPH and IP5 PPH) include many offices. Some of the most notable participants are:
| Office | Abbreviation | Region |
| United States Patent and Trademark Office | USPTO | North America |
| European Patent Office | EPO | Europe (regional) |
| Japan Patent Office | JPO | Asia |
| China National Intellectual Property Administration | CNIPA | Asia |
| Korean Intellectual Property Office | KIPO | Asia |
| United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office | UKIPO | Europe |
| Canadian Intellectual Property Office | CIPO | North America |
| IP Australia | IPA | Oceania |
| Israel Patent Office | ILPO | Middle East |
| Intellectual Property Office of Singapore | IPOS | Asia |
| Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property | INPI | South America |
| Mexican Institute of Industrial Property | IMPI | North America |
| Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand | IPONZ | Oceania |
| Austrian Patent Office | APO | Europe |
The network includes various smaller or regional offices: Austria, Finland, Denmark, Visegrad Patent Institute, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and others have joined the Global PPH over time. As of late 2023, 55 patent offices (national and regional) were participating in the Global PPH network. Brazil joined Global PPH in January 2025, following a transition from a bilateral pilot with the USPTO. ARIPO (African Regional Intellectual Property Organization) joined Global PPH in 2024, representing several African countries.
The IP5 offices (US, Europe, Japan, China, Korea) have made their PPH pilot permanent, signaling the program’s stability among the most prominent offices.
Figure 3: Flags of many participating PPH patent offices around the world, illustrating the global reach of the Patent Prosecution Highway program. Major offices across North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as regional organizations and smaller national IP offices, have joined the PPH network. This worldwide participation enables applicants to fast-track patent applications in a wide array of jurisdictions once an allowed claim is obtained in any one office—source: USPTO.
It’s important to know who is not in PPH: India notably doesn’t have a PPH office, except for a very limited pilot with Japan in select tech fields. Many Middle Eastern and smaller countries are not yet in PPH networks. Participation changes as new bilateral agreements are signed or occasionally suspended for geopolitical reasons.
Where to find current information
The authoritative source for PPH participation and requirements is the Japanese Patent Office’s PPH Portal (English site). The JPO coordinates PPH and maintains up-to-date lists of:
- Participating offices in Global PPH and IP5 PPH, including start dates and any end dates
- Specific bilateral agreements are still in place
- Requirements for each office (with links to each office’s guidelines)
- Forms and guides (e.g., USPTO’s global PPH request form SB/20GLBL)
- News and updates on new offices joining or pilot extensions
Each central patent office also has its own PPH page. The USPTO’s PPH page provides a good overview and lists both Global PPH and separate bilateral arrangements. The EPO’s website has a section on PPH listing all partner offices with PPH programs.
PPH rules evolve. The trend has been toward more flexibility and more participants. Patent offices periodically renew agreements; most Global PPH participants continue year to year, but bilateral arrangements might have fixed terms. The JPO portal typically indicates whether a pilot is set to expire; in practice, many are extended or made permanent.
Your Next Steps to PPH Success
This PPH overview demonstrates how strategically using international filing procedures can dramatically accelerate patent grants across dozens of jurisdictions, but only when the underlying applications are adequately prepared and the PPH requests are correctly executed.
The bottom line
Whether you’re prosecuting a single international application or managing a global portfolio across dozens of jurisdictions, PPH is a powerful tool for efficient intellectual property protection. But weak patents accelerated through PPH don’t protect anything; they become roadmaps showing competitors exactly how to design around your claims. Strong patents that deter competitors and withstand scrutiny require experienced patent prosecution, backed by proprietary Litigation Quality Patent® services that DIY inventors and novice attorneys cannot replicate.
The statistics are compelling when PPH is combined with sophisticated prosecution strategies: 7.5 months versus 22+ months to first office action, 84% allowance rate versus 68% for standard prosecution, and zero government fees. Yet only 2% of applicants take advantage, and many who do make critical mistakes in claim correspondence, timing, or strategic coordination that eliminate the efficiency gains. Working with experienced patent counsel who understand both PPH procedures and international prosecution strategy ensures you’re in the successful 2% who actually achieve these results.
Act now—your competitors already are
Every day you hesitate is another day your competitors gain ground. In our first-to-file system, the first inventor to file wins, regardless of who invented first. A poor PPH strategy results in lost revenue, market share, and control over how your innovations are monetized. Competitors who file first or who out-execute your international strategy will corner markets you could have dominated.
Take these immediate actions.
- Schedule a Free Patent Needs Assessment to evaluate whether the PPH strategy fits your global filing plans and to identify the optimal office sequencing for your technology.
- Audit your pending international applications to determine PPH eligibility and identify opportunities that you’re currently leaving on the table.
- Evaluate your first filing strategy to ensure your initial applications are positioned to create strong PPH opportunities in your key markets.
- Review claim correspondence requirements for your target jurisdictions to ensure your claims will satisfy the “sufficiently correspond” test across all offices.
- Work with patent counsel experienced in Fortune 500-level international prosecution, ideally a firm that has achieved allowance rates of up to 94% through sophisticated Litigation Quality Patent® services and understands both the procedural requirements and strategic implications of PPH in electrical engineering, mechanical systems, software, and medical device technologies.
Invest in preparation, not repairs
A proper PPH strategy requires an upfront investment in sophisticated claim drafting, prior art analysis, and international filing coordination. This investment saves years and high costs compared to the alternative: weak patents that require expensive prosecution across multiple jurisdictions, patents that fail to grant, or worst of all, patents that grant but provide no competitive advantage because they’re too easy to design around.
The quality difference
Your invention might be excellent, but the quality of your patent prosecution determines whether you actually protect that invention or simply educate your competitors. You need experienced legal counsel with engineering backgrounds who engineer patents that withstand scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions and who understand the strategic nuances of PPH timing, claim correspondence, and office-specific requirements, the kind of sophisticated guidance that has resulted in over 1,500 patents issued and allowance rates of up to 94%.
Don’t let competitors use your innovations as roadmaps
Strategic, well-engineered Litigation Quality Patent® services ensure your accelerated patents actually deter competitors rather than showing them how to beat you faster. Contact qualified patent counsel who understands international prosecution strategy, PPH procedural requirements, and how to maximize both speed and strength in your global portfolio.
About the Author
Craige Thompson is a registered patent attorney and founder of Thompson Patent Law, leading a team of registered patent attorneys with engineering degrees and extensive patent experience. The Thompson Patent Law team brings backgrounds from industry and major law firms, with collective experience serving clients ranging from individual inventors to Fortune 500 companies, including Apple, Google, Intel, and Microsoft. With over 1,500 patents issued and allowance rates of up to 94% through sophisticated prosecution strategies, the team provides proprietary Litigation Quality Patent® services across electrical engineering, mechanical systems, software, and medical device technologies.
