Various forms of accelerated patent prosecution are available before the UK Intellectual Property Office.
The Green Channel is one such accelerated prosecution scheme which was introduced on May 12, 2009 and enables applicants to request accelerated processing of any application which is considered to provide an environmental benefit.
In order to apply for the Green Channel scheme, an applicant simply needs to submit in writing a description of the environmental benefit of their invention and must also indicate which actions they seek acceleration for i.e. search, examination, combined search and examination, and/or publication.
The request for entry into the Green Channel scheme can be made at any time from the filing of the application.
Examples of inventions with environmental benefit include wind turbines, solar panels, methods to reuse waste materials, energy saving processes or methods etc.
There is no official fee for requesting Green Channel entry and if the applicant is unsuccessful, the application will continue under normal examination.
Using the Green Channel scheme an applicant can obtain a granted UK patent in as little as 7 months from filing. The typical time from filing to grant for a UK patent application is 36 to 42 months.
More information about the other available forms of accelerated patent prosecution can be found via the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/patents-accelerated-processing.
Article Published April 26th, 2017
