Patent Cooperation Treaty
It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states.
A single filing of a PCT application is made with a Receiving Office (RO) in one language.
[5] In other words, a PCT application, which establishes a filing date in all contracting states, must be followed up with the step of entering into national or regional phases to proceed towards grant of one or more patents.
[7] It was expected that by the end of 2020 the total number of PCT applications filed since the system became operational in 1978 would reach 4 million.
[10] Any contracting state to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property can become a member of the PCT.
[7] The main advantages of the PCT procedure, also referred to as the international procedure, are that (a) it allows the filing of a single patent application, replacing the need for filing a multiplicity of separate applications, with a procedure taking place in a predictable way;[12] (b) the international search and, optionally, the international preliminary examination "give applicants a better basis for deciding whether and in which countries to further pursue their applications", thus allowing "for better management of patent portfolios and the avoidance of unnecessary expenses";[12] and (c) it allows the deferral of national processing.
[15][16] A PCT application, as such, is not an actual request that a patent be granted, and it is not converted into one unless and until it enters the "national phase".
The written opinion is initially confidential, but unless it is superseded by an International Preliminary Examination Report (see optional examination, below), it is made available in the form of an International Preliminary Report on Patentability (Chapter I of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, or IPRP Chapter I), within 30 months of the filing date or a priority date, if any.
[54] The purpose is to reduce the likelihood of seeing new prior art being cited in the subsequent national phases.
[56] The PCT application is published by the International Bureau at the WIPO, based in Geneva, Switzerland, in one of the ten "languages of publication": Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
To do so, the International Bureau (IB) "must receive the notice of withdrawal of the application before the corresponding technical preparations for publication are completed".
[45] If the written opinion established by the International Searching Authority (ISA) is positive, "there is little value to be obtained from filing a demand".
[68] However, "[for] cases where the written opinion of the ISA contains negative findings, the savings in the applicant's/agent's time and, where applicable, agent's fees, required by multiple responses to national offices may well justify the use of the Chapter II procedure.
"[74] The demand for an international preliminary examination also gives the applicant an opportunity to amend the claims, description and drawings.
[79] The PCT does not make any specific provision concerning the types of invention which may be the subject of an international application.
However, this does not affect the issue of whether the invention is patentable under the laws of the contracting states,[80] as "[n]othing in [the PCT] and the Regulations is intended to be construed as prescribing anything that would limit the freedom of each contracting state to prescribe such substantive conditions of patentability as it desires.
For instance, it is possible to enter the European regional phase at 31 months from the earliest priority date.
[84] The first ever decline in the number of filed PCT applications in over 30 years occurred in 2009, with a 4.5 percent drop compared to 2008.
The United States of America continued to be the largest source of applications, followed by China, Japan, Germany, and the Republic of Korea.
The combined share for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Oceania amounted to 1.7% of total PCT filings.
