The European Patent Office (EPO) and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) have officially announced a comprehensive, bilateral Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) programme (OJ EPO 2026, A32). Commencing on 1 August 2026, the new framework allows applicants who receive a positive patentability ruling from one office to request fast-tracked examination of a corresponding application pending at the other, potentially enabling a significantly shortened time to grant.
Key Framework of the Agreement
The programme applies to both national work products and work products generated during the international phase of a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application. It introduces two major shifts:
- Indefinite Duration: Moving past temporary trial models, this bilateral agreement has been established for an indefinite period, providing long-term predictability for global filing strategies. It runs in parallel with the multi-lateral IP5 PPH pilot (currently extended to 2029).
- No Official Fees: There are no official administrative fees associated with filing a PPH acceleration request at either the EPO or CNIPA.
For UK and European businesses managing cross-border intellectual property, navigating parallel applications across multiple jurisdictions can frequently lead to fragmented timelines and high prosecution costs. This new framework establishes a permanent, dedicated bilateral framework specifically between the EPO and CNIPA, removing the regulatory uncertainty of rolling pilot extensions and cementing a long-term work-sharing highway straight into the Chinese market.
While patent applicants often rely on the EPO’s standard PACE programme for acceleration, recent restrictions introduced in February 2026 have changed the landscape. With accelerated search now completely discontinued and the PACE scheme limited strictly to the examination stage, alternative acceleration pathways should be considered.
When comparing these options, it is important to understand their differing mechanics. While a PACE request simply advances the application chronologically in the examiners queue, the PPH delivers a dual advantage: it fast tracks the application’s handling and also requires the EPO examiner to formally consider the search and examination work products already issued in respect of the corresponding Chinese application.
By actively utilising these pre-existing work products to guide the examiner, the PPH track may offer a higher degree of procedural predictability. If the subject matter of at least one claim of a Chinese patent application is found to be patentable by the CNIPA, it may be possible to utilise this positive momentum to accelerate the prosecution of a corresponding European patent application at the EPO.
While the UKIPO maintains its own independent bilateral PPH framework with China for UK national filings, this new EPO-CNIPA framework bridges the gap for the broader European patent and protection, delivering faster, more predictable cross-border commercial protection for our clients.
Requirements Checklist for Applicants
To request fast-track examination under the new programme, applications must meet three main administrative criteria:
- Claim Correspondence: All claims in the accelerated application must sufficiently correspond to, or be narrower than, the claims deemed allowable by the original office.
- Shared Priority: The applications at the EPO and CNIPA must share a common earliest date (whether a national priority date or an international PCT filing date).
- Timing of Request: The request for PPH acceleration must be filed before the relevant patent office has actively begun its substantive examination of the application.