South Korea's Priority Examination Route for Green Energy Patents — and How US Applicants Can Leverage It

With the termination of the USPTO's Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program (CCMPP) on January 28, 2025, applicants for US patents lost a cost-effective option for prioritized examination of "green" patent applications. Outside the US, however, several routes for accelerating green-technology applications remain available — and Korea's Priority Examination (우선심사) process is a particularly useful one.

This post explains the carbon-neutral green-technology priority examination process administered by Korea's Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP) under Patent Act Article 61 and the governing Notice (No. 2026-3). It covers the five eligible technology fields — CO₂ capture, advanced nuclear power, hydrogen and ammonia, advanced mobility, and renewable energy — along with the practical mechanics: the request fee (KRW 200,000 for patents), the roughly one-month timeframe for the decision on the request, and a first action on the merits typically within about two to three months. It also outlines how a favorable Korean result can be used, via the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), to accelerate a corresponding US application without paying the USPTO's prioritized examination fee, as well as a PCT/ISA-based alternative.

This post was prepared in collaboration with Harness IP and originally appeared on the Harness IP website. Read the original here: South Korea's Priority Examination Process for Green Energy Patents | Harness IP.