The Patent Prosecution Highway Program provides accelerated patent prosecution procedures by sharing information between some patent offices. It permits participating patent offices to benefit from the work previously done by other participating offices, by allowing applicants who receive a ruling on at least one claim in a patent application submitted to one agency to ask other participating agencies to fast-track examination of the patent.
According to the National Law Journal the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt) will start a two-year Patent Highway Pilot Program on April 27 this year.
Other pilot programs are already in place with patent offices of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Singapore, UK, Korea, Finland and the European Patent Office.
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