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SSJR Successfully Navigates Patent Prosecution Highway

February 22, 2013 by in General


The patent prosecution highway (PPH) is a set of initiatives designed to accelerate patent prosecution by allowing participating patent offices to benefit from one another’s opinions. A patent application may be granted PPH status (fast-track examination procedures) in the U.S. if a foreign patent office has found patentable at least one corresponding claim in a related application. SSJR has filed a large number of PPH petitions over the last several years and analysis of the data indicates that clients are benefiting from the PPH program. In particular, over a third of PPH-eligible patent applications filed by SSJR have been allowed without any office actions. Another third of these applications were found to have allowable subject matter in the first office action. Final disposition of PPH cases, from filing of the request to obtaining a granted patent, is typically less than a year. Accordingly, SSJR clients are benefiting from accelerated prosecution leading to faster allowances, as well as less rejections resulting in lowered costs. SSJR will continue to leverage programs like the PPH in order to provide value to our clients.