http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/official-journal/president-notices/archive/20220425a.html
Content reproduced from the Website of the European Patent Office as permitted by their terms of use.

Decision of the President of the European Patent Office dated
25 April 2022 suspending the Patent Prosecution Highway programme
between the European Patent Office and the Federal Service for
Intellectual Property based on PCT and national work products

This text is intended for publication in the
Official Journal (OJ) of the EPO. It is made available in advance on
the EPO website merely as a courtesy to the public. Only the text
subsequently published in the officially certified PDF file of the OJ is
authentic. It cannot be guaranteed that this advance version accurately
replicates that text.

The President of the EPO, having regard to Article 10(2) of the European Patent Convention (EPC), has decided as follows:

Article 1

Suspension of the Patent Prosecution Highway programme between the EPO and ROSPATENT

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)
programme between the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Federal
Service for Intellectual Property (ROSPATENT), launched on 1 February
2017 and extended for an indefinite period on 1 February 2020 (OJ EPO 2020, A11), is suspended.

From the date of entry into force of this
decision, the EPO will no longer grant PPH requests where such requests
are based on work performed by ROSPATENT. In addition, in pending cases
where, prior to the date of entry into force of this decision, the EPO
accelerated the processing of applications based on work performed by
ROSPATENT, the EPO will remove the PPH status and return those
applications to the regular processing and examination queue, meaning
they will no longer be treated as PPH applications at the EPO.

Article 2

Entry into force

This decision enters into force on 25 April 2022.

Done at Munich, 25 April 2022

António CAMPINOS

President