Examination of the application

Processing time

According to PRV's delivery target, i.e. what we want to promise you as a customer, a first technical notice should be sent from us at an average of 6 months from the day your application was received. Currently it takes about 6,5 months from the day we received your application until you will receive the first technical notice. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the technical examination will not start before four months, as we wait for the databases which we use for search to be updated. Furthermore, the number of applications and the distribution of the applications within the different technology areas will also affect our delivery times.

In the third quarter of 2026, the average waiting times for a first notice were:

• Mechanical Engineering: 6,5 months
• Electrical Engineering: 7 months
• Chemical and Biological Engineering: 6,5 months

Approximately three-quarters of the patent applications received by PRV will receive a final decision within two years from the day your application was received. It is rare that you must wait more than three years, but it does happen if, for example, your application needs a lot of amendments. If you submit amendments and new documents, our delivery target is that you will hear from us at an average of six months from the date we received the submitted response. This means that you will hear from us sooner in some cases and in other cases a bit later than six months. However, the average delivery time for a further technical notice is currently about 5 months but is also dependent on the technical area your application falls within.

In the third quarter of 2026, the average wait times for another technical notice were:

• Mechanical engineering: 5 months
• Electrical Engineering: 5 months
• Chemical and Biological Engineering: 5 months

Request of early examination

You may request early examination of your patent application with PRV. The request can be submitted in writing or by phone call and may cover the whole examination process or a specific part of it. The request is only approved if the workload at PRV allows for it and if no other applications are significantly delayed as a result. Therefore, each request is assessed and processed on individual basis.

Accelerated examination may also be requested under the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH). In order to use PPH, you must have filed a corresponding patent application in another country and received a positive assessment of the patentability on the invention.