In an interesting development for those seeking patent protection in both Australia and the US, the Australian Patent Office and the USPTO have announced that, as of 14 April 2008, a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) will be introduced on a one-year trial basis. The PPH is intended to shorten patent examination delays before each patent office by leveraging work conducted by the other.
Under the PPH, allowance of a claim in either jurisdiction provides an avenue to accelerate examination in the other.
An obvious advantage for parties outside Australia is that they will be able to accelerate the examination of their Australian applications if they receive a US Office Action that deems at least one claim to be allowable.
A less obvious, but possibly more attractive option, is to use an Australian filing as a means to fast track progress of a corresponding US application. The Australian Patent Office already offers a generally streamlined prosecution process, and examination backlogs are relatively minor. As a result, in some circumstances, it should be possible to progress from filing to allowance within as little as 6 months. At that time, it would be possible to petition the USPTO to accelerate the corresponding US application.
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