What is required for a U.S. application to be eligible for the PPH of another U.S. application?

For a U.S. application to be eligible for the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) based on another U.S. application, it is necessary that one of the applications claims priority from the other, and importantly, that the application from which priority is claimed contains at least one allowable claim. This requirement ensures that there is a substantive basis from which to accelerate the examination of the latter application.

The concept behind the PPH is to leverage the examination work that has already been done on the first application, enabling the second application to benefit from the findings of the first. This is particularly efficient because if an application has at least one allowable claim, it demonstrates that the invention has been recognized as patentable to some extent, increasing the likelihood that related claims in the subsequent application may also align with patentability criteria.

Therefore, the essential elements for PPH eligibility align with the requirement of having at least one allowable claim in the parent application. This approach streamlines the patent examination process, ultimately aiding in quicker decision-making for inventors and their applications.