The European Patent Office (EPO) is running a 12 month pilot project in which European patent applications claiming priority from a UK, Austrian, Danish or German national patent application which has had its search report completed will be given higher priority and faster processing.
European patent applications submitted under the project, called the Utilisation Pilot Project (UPP), will receive Extended European Search Reports (EESR) within 3 - 6 months of filing.
This utilisation concept, which is part of the European Patent Network initiative, is intended to increase the efficiency of the patent granting process at the EPO by avoiding duplication of work already undertaken by national patent offices. The UPP will be used to assess the extent to which the results of work done by the national patent offices of the EPO member states during the examination of applications within their priority year can be utilised by both the European Patent Office (EPO) and the applicants. The aim of the project is to find out whether the overall efficiency of the European patent granting procedure can be improved by utilising work carried out by national patent offices.
It is hoped that, following completion of the UPP, the utilization concept will move to full-scale implementation.
The pilot is open to any applicant who wants to apply for a European patent claiming priority from a searched United Kingdom (UK) application.
The examination process can also be accelerated, by requesting the EPO accelerated substantive examination (PACE) procedure. The EPO will process such requests without objection. | 
