A. Informal personal interview with the Examiner   Thanks to their close proximity to the European Patent Office (EPO) and the German Patent and Trademark Office (GPTO), the attorneys of LAVOIX Munich can easily arrange an informal personal interview with the Examiner during patent prosecution.In such a case, the attorney meets the Examiner personally in his/her office to discuss any outstanding objections. Very often, such an informal meeting greatly helps in understanding the Examiner’s position and enables the application to be put in condition for allowance.LAVOIX Munich offers clients interested in fast prosecution the opportunity for the attorney in charge of the file to contact the Examiner directly after receipt of the first substantive office action, suggesting a personal interview. In general, Examiners agree to such an interview since it allows them to move forward with the file.   B. Request for accelerated search and examination   GPTO   Prosecution at the GPTO can be accelerated on request. The applicant must indicate why they would like the prosecution to be accelerated. The request is free of official charges.EPOProsecution at the EPO can be accelerated using a simple one page request. The request is free of official fees. The EPO’s accelerated prosecution program is called PACE.C. Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a framework in which an application whose claims have been determined to be patentable in one Office is eligible to go through an accelerated examination in another Office upon the applicant’s request.Below, we provide the relevant links regarding PPH at the GPTO and the EPO:GPTOPPH based on US application PPH based on JP application PPH based on CN application PPH based on CA application PPH based on KR application EPOPPH based on US application PPH based on PCT application PPH based on JP application   Before the EPO, we generally advise our clients to file an acceleration request under PACE (see section B. above) instead of a PPH request. PACE is granted without conditions, whereas with PPH the claims of the EP application must “sufficiently correspond” to the allowable claims of the parallel application.D. Waiving EPO CommunicationsWaiving the invitation to proceed furtherBefore the applicant receives the European search report, they can pay the examination fee and waive the invitation under Rule 70(2) EPC to proceed further with the application, irrespective of the results of the search. In this case the European search report is issued together with a first examination report instead of a search opinion.Euro-PCT: Waiving the opportunity to file amendments shortly after EP phase entryThe applicant can accelerate the processing of an international application by explicitly waiving their right to the Communication under Rules 161(1) and 162 EPC allowing them to file amendments shortly after EP phase entry.This is under condition that, on entry into the European phase, the applicant has already taken all necessary steps such as filing amendments or corrections in response to the WO-ISA, the IPER or the explanations contained in the SISR, and paying the claims fees.The EPO can then immediately start the supplementary European search or examination.   E. ConclusionIf you are interested in accelerating prosecution in a specific case, we would be glad to assist you in deciding which of the above options would be best suited. Each option has certain advantages and drawbacks that we could then discuss in detail.If you have questions on the above, feel free to contact us. 