Starting August 1, the China-Europe Patent Examination Expressway (PPH) pilot, jointly launched by the China National Intellectual Property Administration and the European Patent Office (EPO), as well as the China-India (Nigerian) PPH pilot jointly launched by the Intellectual Property Directorate General of the Ministry of Justice of China and Indonesia, have officially entered operation.

This marks the first bilateral PPH cooperation with the European Patent Office since China launched its first PPH pilot in 2011, and marks a key breakthrough in accelerated patent examination with key emerging markets in Southeast Asia. With this, China has established PPH cooperation with patent examination institutions in 38 countries or regions, providing a richer and more accelerated channel for domestic innovation entities to expand their overseas patent portfolios.

1. Definition

of PPH The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) refers to the process where, in the patent application submitted by the Office of Prior Examination (OEE), at least one claim is recognized as grantable, which can serve as the basis for the application. An international cooperation mechanism for submitting expedited examination requests to the Post-Examination Office (OLE) for corresponding patent applications.
Simply put: Country A passes the review, and you take Country A’s conclusion to request accelerated review in Country B.
The essence of PPH is a mechanism for sharing work results among different patent examination offices—the same technical solution is filed in multiple jurisdictions worldwide, and its novelty, inventiveness, and practicality are highly overlapping in substantive judgments. Prior art searches and patentability analyses completed by the Earlier Examination Bureau have direct reference value for the Later Examination Bureau. PPH allows post-review bureaus to directly utilize the search and examination results of earlier review offices, thereby avoiding redundant work and significantly improving examination efficiency.

2. The Three Types

of PPH According to the source of the review results, PPH can be divided into three categories:

(1) Conventional PPH: Based on the examination results of national or regional patent offices, conventional PPH is the most basic and common type.
The applicant files a patent application in Country A, and after examination, the Patent Office of Country A determines that at least one of the claims is licensable. Subsequently, the applicant subsequently submits a corresponding application in Country B. At this point, based on the authorization conclusion issued by the Patent Office of Country A, the applicant may request accelerated examination of the application from the Patent Office of Country B.
Essentially, after Country A passes the review, it requests Country B to accelerate the review based on Country A’s conclusion.
It should be clarified that the patent office of country B referred to the examination results of country A to expedite the process, and whether to grant the patent office in country B remains to be independently decided.
(2) PCT-PPH: Based on the written opinion (WO/ISA) of the PCT international phase or the International Preliminary Examination Report (IPER),
if the applicant does not submit the application directly to the country but first submits a PCT international application, then a written opinion will be issued during the PCT international phase regarding whether the application contains novelty, Judgment of inventive and practical claims.
If this written opinion gives a positive conclusion—that is, at least one claim is grantable—the applicant may, based on this international phase affirmative opinion, directly request expedited examination from the relevant national patent offices when entering the national phase.
Essentially, after passing the international phase of the PCT, there is no need to wait for prior authorization from any country; one can request accelerated examination from national patent offices.
The greatest advantage of this approach is that it is time-advanced, without waiting for any country’s review conclusions; the PCT international phase conclusions can be used to initiate the country-level acceleration process.
(3) PPH MOTTAINAI: This refers to the extension of PPH, which relaxes the eligibility criteria for conventional PPH.
Conventional PPH has a restriction: it can only be based on the review results of the initial application bureau. That is, the first country to submit an application can only use that country’s review result to apply for acceleration in other jurisdictions.
However, a common practice scenario is that the applicant first submits an application to Country A, then subsequently submits a corresponding application to Country B. As a result, Country B reviewed faster and was the first to reach an authorizable conclusion, while Country A was still waiting in line for review. According to the conventional PPH rules, the review conclusions of Country B cannot be used to request acceleration from other countries, resulting in substantial waste of the review results.
PPH MOTTAINAI has overcome this limitation. As long as a family patent application receives an authorizability conclusion at either participating office, regardless of whether it is a first-time applicant, it may request expedited PPH examination from other participating offices based on this. This allows review outcomes to be fully reused across multiple jurisdictions, maximizing the efficiency of review resource utilization.
Essentially, regardless of order, if any participating round passes first, they can request acceleration from other participating rounds. The original intention behind this mechanism is precisely to prevent the results from being idle and wasted, allowing the conclusions generated in advance to be fully reused.

3. Conditions

for PPH Requests: To submit a PPH request, the following conditions must be met:
(1) Relevance of the application before and after: the earliest
date of the same
PPH requires that both first-to-file and later applications target the same invention and have the same priority or filing date. This means that both applications must belong to the same “patent family” to be included in the PPH framework. If the target is a completely different technical solution and lacks relevance, it cannot be used through the PPH channel.
(2) The relevant application has at least one claim deemed authorizable
by
the OEE. This is a prerequisite for initiating the PPH—the OEE must clearly confirm in the examination conclusion that at least one claim in the application is patentable or licensable.

• Conventional PPH: Based on the examination conclusion of the national/regional patent office, at least one claim is recognized as patentable
• PCT-PPH: Based on the results of the PCT international phase (WO/ISA, WO/IPEA, or IPER), at least one claim is patentable

If the OEE has not made any authorizable determination, or if the finding is a complete rejection, there is no basis for submitting a PPH request.
(3) The claims of the OLE application and the claims deemed by OEE to be licensable/patentable are fully corresponding

, and the applicant cannot use PPH to expand the scope of protection. Claims filed by the Post-Examination Bureau (OLE) must be equal to or narrower in scope than those granted by the Prior Examination Office, meaning the scope can be narrowed but not expanded, and the type must be consistent—the product claims cannot correspond to the method claims.
(4) Electronic Application

PPH Requests are usually required to be submitted electronically. Most patent offices participating in PPH require applicants to submit PPH requests and related documents using electronic application systems. Since 2026, the China National Intellectual Property Administration has prioritized requiring PPH requests to be submitted electronically in XML format; paper applications are not included in the priority processing scope. Applicants need to confirm the electronic submission format requirements of the target country in advance.
(5) Timing of Request:
When submitting a PPH request to the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the following conditions must be met: the application has been published, has entered the substantive examination stage (or is submitted simultaneously with the substantive examination request), and is usually submitted before the commencement of substantive examination. The same application has up to two chances to submit a PPH request.

4. Benefits

Brought by This Pilot Activity China-Europe PPH Pilot: Opening an Accelerated Channel
for the European Market The China-Europe PPH pilot launched on August 1, This marks the first time the China National Intellectual Property Administration and the European Patent Office have established bilateral PPH cooperation. Previously, the China-Europe PPH channel mainly operated based on the IP5 multilateral framework (China-US, EU-Japan-Korea), and required regular renewals. This indefinite pilot of the China-EU bilateral pilot marks the formal institutionalization and normalization of China-EU PPH cooperation.
Value for domestic applicants: Once a core patent is granted in China, it is possible to request accelerated examination of the corresponding application from the European Patent Office. For companies planning to enter the European market, the patent confirmation cycle is expected to be significantly shortened. Using PPH services at the European Patent Office does not incur any additional fees; applicants only need to pay the standard patent application procedure fees.
China-India (Nichi) PPH Pilot: Accelerated Channel

for Emerging Southeast Asian Markets The China-India (Nichiban) PPH pilot was launched on the same day for a five-year period, marking a key breakthrough in accelerated patent examination between China and key emerging market countries in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is one of Southeast Asia’s largest economies and an important destination for domestic companies going global.
Value for domestic applicants: After obtaining an authorizability conclusion in China, domestic patent applicants can request accelerated examination of the corresponding application from the Directorate-General of Intellectual Property Indonesia. This is the first time domestic applicants have obtained the PPH acceleration channel targeting Indonesia, and for companies with market presence in Southeast Asia, the efficiency of patent confirmation is expected to improve significantly.

5. Conclusion

The China-Europe and China-India (Nepal) PPH pilot projects launched on August 1 provide two brand-new accelerated channels for domestic innovation entities to expand their overseas patent portfolios. Europe welcomed its first bilateral PPH cooperation, which operated without a fixed term, marking the institutionalization and normalization of China-EU intellectual property cooperation; Southeast Asia has achieved its first coverage of Indonesia, a key market, providing new institutional tools for domestic companies to go global.

For applicants, PPH does not change the substantive examination standards of each country, but under the premise of compliant use, it can serve as a cost-effective efficiency lever in overseas patent layouts. Taking PPH into account from the initial stage of application strategy formulation and planning patent layout in advance is essential to maximize patent confirmation efficiency in target markets.

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