Last month, The U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) signed an agreement for a new Accelerated Patent Grant (APG) arrangement with Ghana’s IP office, the Registrar General’s Department, Ministry of Justice (GHIPO). This is the USPTO’s first with an African country.
The agreement was signed on July 9 in Geneva, Switzerland, at the annual meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and was fêted by African musicians and U.S. artist John Legend. The agreement with Ghana is the 10th such agreement to be signed by the USPTO and a partner IP office.
With a gross domestic product of $114 billion in 2025, Ghana is one of the faster-growing economies in Africa. In 2024, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization, 33% of foreign patent applications in Ghana originated with U.S.-based filers (i.e., of all the patent applications in Ghana, 33 percent were filed by Americans who chose to also file in Ghana).
Under the APG process, a U.S. patentee may request that Ghana’s IP office grant a patent on a corresponding Ghanaian patent application pending before GHIPO. Essentially, if an inventor holds a patent, and has applied for the same in Ghana, they may request that Ghana grant the application based on the USPTO’s rationale. This is similar to how it’s done for filers who file with PCT countries using the Patent Prosecution Highway. The worksharing arrangement with Ghana will continue for five years from the date of signing.
Guidelines describing GHIPO’s implementation of the program and the process for how a U.S. patent holder can take advantage of the arrangement will soon be available on GHIPO’s website. For more information about filing a patent application in Ghana, refer to Ghana’s Registrar-General’s Department.
For more information about USPTO worksharing programs, visit the USPTO’s patent worksharing webpage.