Article 32

Patent Prosecution Highway programme between the European Patent Office and the China National Intellectual Property Administration based on PCT and national work products

I. Background

The European Patent Office (EPO) and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) have concluded a comprehensive Patent Prosecution Highway pilot programme.

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) leverages fast-track patent examination procedures already available at the offices to allow applicants to obtain corresponding patents faster and more efficiently. It also permits each office to exploit the work previously done by the other office.

The new bilateral PPH programme will run alongside the existing IP5 PPH framework and follow the same conditions.

II. The PPH-Programme

The PPH enables an applicant whose claims have been determined to be patentable/allowable to have a corresponding application filed with a PPH partner office processed in an accelerated manner while at the same time allowing the offices involved to exploit available work results.

Under the programme a PPH request can be based

either on the latest PCT work product (written opinion of the ISA (WO-ISA) or international preliminary examination report (IPER)) established by one of the participating offices as ISA or IPEA,

or on the national work product established during the processing of a national application or a PCT application that has entered the national phase before one of the participating offices, where this work product determines one or more claims to be patentable/allowable.

Where the EPO work product contains one or more claims that is or are determined to be patentable/allowable, the applicant may request participation in the PPH programme at CNIPA. The procedures and requirements for filing a request with CNIPA are available via english.cnipa.gov.cn/col/col1351/index.html.

For the purposes of this notice

Office of Earlier Examination (OEE) refers to CNIPA, also in its capacity as ISA and/or IPEA, the work product of which is used as a basis for the PPH request,

while the Office of Later Examination (OLE) refers to the EPO as the office before which participation in the PPH programme is being requested.

A. Term of the PPH programme between the EPO and CNIPA

With effect from 1 August 2026 the PPH programme between the EPO and CNIPA will run for an indefinite period. The requirements set out below will apply to PPH requests filed with the EPO on or after 1 August 2026.

It may be suspended, amended or terminated early by mutual consent. The Offices will evaluate the results of the PPH pilot programme.

B. Requirements for requesting participation in the PPH programme between the EPO and CNIPA

In order to be eligible to participate in the PPH programme at the EPO, the following requirements must be met:

1. The EP application for which participation in the PPH programme is requested must have the same earliest date as the corresponding national application filed with CNIPA, or a corresponding PCT international application for which CNIPA has been ISA and/or IPEA, must have the same earliest date whether this be the priority or filing date.
2. The corresponding application(s) must have at least one claim indicated by CNIPA in its capacity as a national office or ISA and/or IPEA to be patentable/allowable. The claim(s) determined as novel, inventive and industrially applicable by the ISA and/or IPEA has/have the meaning of patentable/allowable for the purposes of this notice.
3. All claims in the application for which a request for participation in the PPH pilot programme is made must sufficiently correspond to the patentable/allowable claims in the corresponding application(s). Claims are considered to sufficiently correspond where, accounting for differences due to claim format requirements, the claims are of the same or a similar scope or the claims in the application for which PPH is requested are narrower in scope than the claims in the corresponding application(s). In this regard, a claim that is narrower in scope occurs when an OEE claim is amended to be further limited by an additional feature that is supported in the specification (description and/or claims). Additionally, a claim in the OLE application which introduces a new/different category of claims than those indicated to be patentable/allowable by the OEE is not considered to sufficiently correspond, unless national/regional laws permit such claim types. For example, where the OEE claims only contain claims to a process of manufacturing a product, then the claims in the EP application are not considered to sufficiently correspond if the EP claims introduce product claims that are dependent on the corresponding process claims. The applicant is required to declare that the claims between the EP and the OEE applications sufficiently correspond.
4. Substantive examination of the EP application for which participation in the PPH programme is requested has not begun.

The examination starting date is visible for unpublished applications only at the request of the applicant or their representative or by inspecting the file using the MyEPO service, for published applications to all in the European Patent Register.

C. Documents required for participation in the PPH programme

For participation in the PPH programme at the EPO the applicant has to:

1. file a request for participation in the PPH programme. The request form EPA/EPO/OEB 1009 (Participation in the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programme) is available via the EPO website at epo.org;
2. file a declaration of claims correspondence which is included in the request form EPA/EPO/OEB 1009;
3. submit a copy of either all the office actions for the OEE corresponding application(s) containing the patentable/allowable claims that are the basis for the PPH request and a translation thereof in one of the EPO official languages, or the latest work product in the international phase of a PCT application, the WO-ISA or, where a demand under PCT Chapter II has been filed, the WO-IPEA or the IPER and a translation thereof in one of the EPO official languages;
4. submit a copy of the patentable/allowable claim(s) from the OEE application(s) and a translation thereof in one of the EPO official languages;
5. submit copies of all the documents other than patent documents cited in the OEE office action(s) or the PCT work product identified in point (3) above.

If any of the documents referred to in points 3 and 4 above

1. have already been filed in the EP application prior to the request for participation in the PPH pilot programme, it will not be necessary for the applicant to resubmit these documents with the PPH request. The applicant may simply refer to these documents and indicate in the request for participation in the PPH programme when these documents were previously filed in the EP application.
2. are available via DAS (Dossier Access System) or Patentscope, the applicant does not need to submit a copy thereof but needs to provide a list of the documents to be retrieved. Machine translations will be admissible for the documents referred to in points 3 and 4. The EPO can request applicants to submit an accurate translation if the machine translation is insufficient. If the OEE application(s) is (are) unpublished, the applicant must submit the documents referred to in points 3 and 4 above upon filing the PPH request.

When the requirements set out above are met, the request for participation in the PPH programme will be granted and the EP application will be processed in an accelerated manner. In those instances where the request for participation in the PPH programme does not meet all the requirements set out above, the applicant will be notified and the defects in the request will be identified. The applicant will be given one opportunity to correct formal deficiencies identified in the request. If the request is not corrected, the application will be taken out of the PPH programme, and the applicant will be notified.

D. Prosecution in an accelerated manner

Once the request for participation in the PPH programme has been granted, the EP application will be processed in an accelerated manner. The conditions applicable to the PACE programme¹ apply by analogy to the prosecution of EP applications processed under the PPH programme between the EPO and CNIPA.

Any inquiries concerning this notice may be directed to Directorate Patent Developments and IP Lab at [email protected].

Annex 1

Annex 2