Speed up your patent application examination in China

Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) or Prioritized Examination program are prosecutions to accelerate your patent application examination process, but which is suitable for your patent application?

What is PPH and Prioritized Examination program?

PPH is a framework which allows an application whose claims have been considered to be patentable in the earlier examination office (EEO) is eligible to go through an accelerated examination in the later examination office (LEO).

Prioritized Examination is a program for expedited review to those patent applications have qualified in some technology fields or met government’s policies. The prioritized Examination seemed faster than the PPH request for expediting process in examination. For an invention application, the time of receiving first Office Action is 45 days, and the whole examination will be finished in 12 months. However, the number of requests for prioritized examination being accepted within a fiscal year is limited.

Requirements and limitations

There are two routes for patent applications to apply PPH. One is for the patent applications which have been filed under Paris convention. The other one is for PCT patent applications.

PPH has a region limitation, as above-mentioned, the PPH works when claims are considered to be patentable by the EEO. The opinion of EEO must recognized by LEO. So far, CNIPA (China) has signed PPH agreements with more than 20 countries around the world including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Israel, Germany, Russia, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Poland, Spain, Portugal, UK, Iceland, Sweden, Hungary, USA, Mexico, Argentina, Malaysia, Czech Republic, Canada, Brazil,  Egypt, Chile and Norway.

One of the most common troublesome issue for requesting PPH in CNIPA is the claim in-correspondence. The restrictions of claim amendment in CNIPA is very strict. There are risks where amendments going beyond the scope of the disclosure in initial filing in CNIPA because the applicant often amended the claims during the prosecution in EEO.

Although Prioritized Examination doesn’t have such problem, the patent application in China must satisfy one of the following requirements:

1. The technology of the claimed invention must be related to energy conservation, environment protection, new-generation of information, biological technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy of materials, new energy vehicles, intelligent manufacturing and other key industries;
2. The technology of the claimed invention related to the key industries which encouraged and supported by the governments at provincial and municipal level;
3. Fields related to internet, big data and cloud computing in which the technology and products has rapidly update rate;
4. The claimed invention which are ready for implementation or have already been implemented by the patent applicants or those with evidence proving that others are implementing the invention;
5. The application was first filed in China and then filed in other countries or regions with the same subject matters; and
6. The claimed invention has great significance to government interests or public interests.

Except for the #5, applicant is required submitting recommendation letter which is made from governments at provincial and municipal level. Therefore, the Prioritized Examination is not very friendly for foreigner applicants.

Fees

Whether filing a request for PPH or filing a request for Prioritized Examination, there is only a small service fee and no official fee.

Conclusion

The Prioritized Examination is extremely fast and number one choice, if your patent application was first filed in China. However, the examination speed will still be significantly expedited by applying PPH. Moreover, the cost of requesting PPH or Prioritized Examination is low.

If you need urgently patent protection in China, just do it to accelerate your patent examination process.