EPO-EAPO: PPH pilot programme

On April 27, 2017, the Presidents of the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) signed an agreement on starting a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot programme.

The pilot programme is expected to be launched in the second half of 2017. Under the PPH agreement, applicants will get the possibility to request expedited examination at the EPO or EAPO if the other office has determined at least one of the claims patentable. Sharing work results between the patent offices may significantly speed up the whole registration process due to the accelerated examination and bring cost savings to the applicants.

Within the cooperation framework, the EAPO will also contribute its patent data to the EPO’s patent database Espacenet. Besides, Russian-English component has been available in the EPO’s machine translation tool since 2013, which provides better access to patent information.

For more information on obtainment of European and Eurasian regional patents please visit our applicant’s guide. Also, we welcome you to get actual and accurate quotes for IP rights protection worldwide via our quotation system.

Author: Lynda Miller