A new cooperation between patent offices in Sweden, the US and Japan provides Swedish and other Nordic companies with a means of significantly accelerating the processing of their international patent applications in the national phase. This bilateral agreement is called the Patent Cooperation Treaty-Patent Prosecution Highway (PCT-PPH).

- By entering into these bilateral agreements, the risk of unnecessary duplication of work is kept to a minimum which will increase quality and provide more effective procedures, says Susanne Ås Sivborg, Director General of PRV.

Agreements with the patent offices in Japan and the US are run as pilot programmes and will be evaluated to consider whether there are grounds for making permanent agreements, as well as similar agreements with other countries.

More information

Information about the new PPH-PCT agreements on PRV's website