Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT):
Another treaty, known as the Patent Cooperation Treaty or PCT,
facilitates the filing of applications for patents on the same
invention in member countries. The PCT provides for centralized filing
procedures whereby a single application filed in a PCT governmental
receiving office can constitute an application for patent in one or
more (including all) member countries. Once the application is filed,
one of the eligible PCT governmental searching offices will perform a
patent search on the application. When the search is completed, the
applicant may then elect to enter what is known as "Chapter II" of the
process, a PCT governmental office evaluates the patentability of the
application pursuant to patentability standards set forth in the
Patent Cooperation Treaty. Eventually, the applicant will be required
to have the PCT application officially entered into the national
patent office of each of the countries from which the applicant
desires patent protection.
There are several advantages to the PCT process. First, the applicant
can file a single PCT application rather than filing a series of
national applications. The single PCT application is much less
expensive than the individual national filings. Although the applicant
will eventually be required to incur a cost similar to the national
filings when the PCT application is entered in each national patent
office, the PCT procedure allows these costs to be delayed for up to
eighteen months. This period of time will allow the inventor a better
chance to analyze the patentability and profitability of the
invention, and therefore the applicant can make a more informed
decision regarding where the patent application should be filed.
A second advantage of the PCT process is that the evaluation of
patentability made by the PCT governing body handling the examination
should lead to more uniform results in connection with the
patentability of the invention in each country. Although individual
countries are not bound by the determination made during the PCT
process, a positive PCT decision on patentability is often persuasive
evidence in a national patent office.
Additional advantages of the PCT process include advanced application
manipulation designed to achieve such results as obtaining an early
search result from the European Patent Office; delaying entry into the
U.S. Patent Office, and utilizing the patentability requirements of
the PCT document rather than the U.S. Patent Act. These advanced
applications should be discussed with a qualified patent attorney with
experience in handling PCT applications.
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