Finland’s Accelerated Examination Channel – PPH Request

In Finland, if you want to speed up the examination of your patent application, you can take the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH).

• The OSF/OLE application must be linked to the OFF/OEE application. For example, the OFF/OEE application is the application that claims priority from the OSF/OLE application.
• OSF/OLE applications must have at least one application determined to be allowable by OFF/OEE.
• All claims in the OSF/OLE application must be consistent with the claims in the OFF/OEE application.

Types of PPH:

1. Regular PPH: Under the Regular PPH agreement, when the national examination result of the first patent office (Office of First Filing, OFF) on the corresponding patent claims is positive, you can request the second patent office (Office of Second Filing, OFF) to conduct an expedited examination on your patent claims. When two competent authorities have signed a Regular PPH agreement, the Office of First Filing (OFF) must be the competent authority that initially accepted the application.
2. PCT-PPH: The PCT-PPH agreement allows applicants to request expedited examination at a second Office when the International Searching Authority (ISA) or International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) has issued a positive written opinion or a positive international preliminary report, respectively, on the patentability of the underlying application.
3. PPH (MOTTAINAI) agreement: If two competent offices sign a PPH (MOTTAINAI) agreement, the applicant can apply for accelerated examination at the subsequent examining office based on the examination result of the earlier examining office. In this case, OEE is not necessarily the first competent office (OFF) to receive the relevant application.
4. The Global PPH (GPPH) is a collaborative project between 27 patent offices that aims to streamline the existing PPH system. The GPPH parties have agreed on uniform requirements for PPH requests and developed common guidelines for processing these requests. The Global PPH is based on the PPH (MOTTAINAI) system, which allows applicants to submit a PPH request to another office based on patent claims allowed by any contracting party, regardless of which office receives the application first. Applicants can file a GPPH request based on a national application or a PCT application.

PPH Program:

• Application 1 and Application 2 must be related. For example, Application 2 can claim priority from Application 1, or it can be a PCT national phase application.
• Fees for PPH applications: Usually no fees are charged. The Korean Patent Office charges a handling fee.
• When to file a PPH: A PPH application can be filed at any time during the Finnish patent application process. If there are allowable claims in the priority application, a PPH request can be filed when filing the second application. The PPH request is usually filed before receiving the first examination action notice issued by the Patent Office.

Documents required for PPH:

1. An application corresponding to the first application, i.e., one for which you wish to expedite the processing of that application, e.g., another application claiming priority from the first application
2. Application form, including claim correspondence table
3. The claims that can be granted, and their translations if necessary
4. Decision of the Prior Examining Office that the claims are patentable
5. Copies of cited documents (you may simply list the names of the documents in the table. Applicants may choose to attach the documents or request PRH to retrieve them from the database)
6. Even if the Finnish application examination procedure is conducted in Finnish or Swedish, the PPH request form must be in English
7. PRH may issue a correction notice in response to a PPH request
8. If the patent application has not been published by the earlier examining office, the applicant must submit a priority document to the PRH (and preferably also a translation of the front page of the priority document into English, Finnish or Swedish, if the priority application was filed in another language). Submit priority documents for all applications claiming priority, even if the PPH request is based on only one of them (e.g. submit a priority document for an international application, if any, even if there is no application)
9. Submit priority documents for all applications claiming priority, such as priority documents for international applications filed under PCT-PPH
10. If the applicant does not submit the priority document of the international application, after the application is published, the examiner can search the requested priority in the Patentscope database and process it.
11. If the PPH application is based on the priority of a domestic application, the priority document must be submitted within 16 months from the priority date of the application. Once the priority document is received, the application will be processed under the PPH immediately after the priority right is checked and registered.

The countries that have signed PPH bilateral agreements with Finland are:

• IPO-CZ, Czech Republic
• CNIPA, China PPH and PCT-PPH
• EAPO, Eurasian Patent Office PPH and PCT-PPH
• DNPI, Uruguay, PPH pilot 1.10.2022-30.9.2025
• INPI, Brazil, PPH pilot 1.8.2023-31.7.2028

At the same time, Finland has also joined the Global PPH network. The countries that can participate in GPPH are:

• APO, Austria
• CIPO, Canada
• DKPTO, Denmark
• DPMA, Germany
• ELS, Iceland
• EPA, Estonia
• HPO, Hungary
• ILPO, Israel
• INAPI, Chile
• INDECOPI, Peru
• INPI, Portugal
• IP Australia, Australia
• IPONZ, New Zealand
• IPOS, Singapore
• JPO, Japan
• KIPO, South Korea
• NIPO, Norway
• NPI, Nordic Patent Institute
• PPO, Poland
• PRV, Sweden
• ROSPATENT, Russia
• SIC, Colombia
• SPTO, Spain
• UKIPO, Great Britain
• USPTO, United States
• VPI, Visegrad Patent Institute