What is a PCT Patent application?

To understand what is PCT Patent system you must first understand what is conventional patent filing system and what are its limitations.

The national/conventional patent system requires the filing of individual patent applications for each country for which patent protection is sought.

Under the traditional Paris Convention route, you must file a patent application in each country within 12 months of the filing date of the earlier application.

This means you need to meet the expenses for translation, patent attorneys in the various countries and payment of fees to the patent offices, all at a time when you generally do not know whether you are likely to obtain a patent or whether the invention is really new compared with the state of the art.

This means that as an applicant you need to file hundreds of patent applications for your invention before you get to know if your invention is patentable or even commercially viable. And you need to do this within 12 months of filing your initial application in your home country.

Furthermore filing of patent applications under the national system means that every single patent office with which an application is filed has to carry out a formal examination of every application filed with it.

Click here: How much does it cost to file a PCT National Phase Patent in India?

What is Patent Cooperation Treaty?

In order to overcome some of the problems involved in the national system a treaty called the Patent Cooperation Treaty was adopted in June 1970. The Patent Cooperation Treaty or PCT entered into force on January 24, 1978, and became operational on June 1, l978.

As its name suggests, the Patent Cooperation Treaty is an agreement for international cooperation in the field of patents.

Patent Cooperation Treaty is basically a mechanism to allow you to file a single international patent application which will have an effect of filing individual patent applications in the member countries.

The PCT does not provide for the grant of international patents. The task of and responsibility for granting patents remains exclusively in the hands of the patent offices of the countries where protection is sought. The PCT does not compete with but, in fact, complements the Paris Convention. Indeed, it is a special agreement under the Paris Convention open only to States which are already party to that Convention.

Purpose and objective of Patent Co-operation treaty

The principal objective of the PCT is, to improve on the previously established means of applying in several countries for patent protection for inventions. This acts both in the interests of the users of the patent system and the offices which have responsibility for administering it.

To achieve its objective, the PCT:

• establishes an international system which enables the filing, with a single patent office (the receiving office), of a single application (the international application) in one language having effect in each of the countries party to the PCT which the applicant names (designates) in the application;
• provides for the formal examination of the international application by a single patent office, the receiving office;
• subjects each international application to an international search which results in a report citing the relevant prior art (mainly published patent documents relating to previous inventions) which may have to be taken into account in deciding whether the invention is patentable;
• provides for centralized international publication of international applications with the related international search reports, as well as their communication to the designated offices;
• provides an option for an international preliminary examination of the international application, which gives the applicant and subsequently the offices that have to decide whether or not to grant a patent, a report containing an opinion as to whether the claimed invention meets certain international criteria for patentability.

Functioning of PCT System

PCT patent application is a single international patent application that the applicant needs to file to keep his protection ‘live’ in about 150 member countries which have signed the Patent Cooperation Treaty. This is known as the International Phase.

By filing this single PCT patent application, the applicant gets time of 31 months to commercially exploit the invention, as well as get an international preliminary report on patentability, without losing the priority date, and then ultimately decide in which countries he wants to file the PCT National Phase Patent application in order to get a local patent protection.

At the end of 31 months the applicant needs to file PCT National Phase Patent applications in the local patent offices of the countries where he wants to hold a patent. This is known as the National Phase.

The patent granted at the end of this National Phase will be effective from the date of the earliest priority date giving protection to the invention from the date of the first application filed in the home country.

For a patent rights, the date of disclosure is of primary importance in order to initiate legal proceedings against an infringement.

PCT system is very convenient to get the protection from the earliest date while keeping the costs down in the meantime.

Attorney fee for PCT national phase patent in India

Action based fee

  • Attorney fee for preparing and filing a PCT national phase patent in India
  • Additional fee for responding to office actions
  • Additional fee for preparing evidences and arguments
  • Additional fee for attending hearings with the examiner

Capped Flat fee

  • Attorney fee for preparing and filing a PCT national phase patent in India
  • No further fee for responding to office actions
  • No further fee for preparing evidences and arguments
  • No further fee for attending hearings with the examiner

What is the official fee for filing a PCT national phase patent in India?

The official fee for filing a PCT national phase patent in India
Action Particulars – in US$IndividualLarge Firm
Filing application for Patent30130
For each additional priority30130
Each additional page over 300314
Each additional claim over 100628
Filing request for examination70300

Written by Mahesh Bhagnari, Patent & Trademark Attorney in India.

I, Mahesh Bhagnari, am the Managing Principal of the firm:

  • I am an Attorney at Law with Bar Council Registration № MAH/1574/2003.
  • I am a licensed Patent attorney in India and Design attorney in India with Registration № IN PA 1108.
  • I am a licensed Trademark attorney in India with Registration № 10742.
  • I have more than eighteen years of professional experience working in the field of Intellectual property.
Patent attorney in India
Patent attorney in India

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