How to file a PPH request

The PPH request is filed with the authority that you want to fast-track the examination of your application. To file a request, you need to have:

1. an application (whose processing you want to expedite) corresponding to your first application - for example, a further application in which you claim priority from the first application

2. a request form, including a claim correspondence table

3. the patent claims determined to be allowable and, if necessary, a translation of them

4. the decision where the first office states that the claims are allowable

5. copies of the cited documents.

Normally you can ask the second office to retrieve the documents according to items 3 to 5 from online databases. The form and claim correspondence table should be available on the website of the office concerned. Always check in the office's guidelines which documents you have to attach to the request.

All patent authorities accept the PPH documents in English. When you file a national application with the PRH, ask that we process it in English, and you need not have our decisions translated, if you decide to file a PPH request.

PPH requests to the PRH

Use the English form for a PPH request to the PRH, even if your application will be processed in Finnish or in Swedish:

PRH PPH request (pdf, 0.2 MB)

The required documents are listed on the form. You can choose whether you attach the documents, or ask us to retrieve them from databases.
You can save, fill in, and submit the form and appendices to us by post or using the eOLF application, just as with other application documents.

You can file a PPH request at any time during the processing of your application, unless we have issued a final decision on it. If your request is not approved directly, we will inform you in a letter, and you can complement the request accordingly. Upon an approved request, your application will be fast-tracked until our final decision.

Before an application can proceed to technical examination, it must pass our formal examination. The applicant must also submit documents to the PRH that are required in the formal examination.

PPH request concerning a PRH application when an application of the first examining authority is not yet public

If the applicant wants an application with a PPH request to be processed before the first examined application forming the basis of the PPH request is public, they must also submit a priority document to the PRH (if the priority application is in some other language, preferably also the first pages of the priority document translated into English, Finnish or Swedish). Submit the priority documents for all applications from which priority is claimed, even if the PPH request is only based on one of them (for example submit a priority document, if any, for an international application, even if an ISA search forms the basis of the PPH request). The application will not be processed under the PPH until the priority has been checked and registered.

If the applicant does not submit any priority document for an international application in advance, the application will be processed under the PPH as soon as the priority claimed has been checked in the Patentscope database after the application has become public.

If the PPH request is based on priority from a national application, the priority document must be filed within 16 months of the priority date of the application (section 11 of the Finnish Patents Decree). The application will be processed under the PPH as soon as the priority document has arrived and the priority has been checked and registered.

Our PPH agreements and guidelines

The table below shows the patent offices that we have made a PPH agreement with, and detailed guidelines for filing a PPH request with the individual offices.

Apart from the pilot projects, the agreements are in force until further notice.

Global PPH

The following countries have joined the Global PPH:

• 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