Posts Tagged: "PCT"

There are several different forms of intellectual property rights available in the United Kingdom, each with its own formality, level of protection, and duration period. It is crucial that any individual who creates a product, or who believes that they would benefit through protecting their intellectual property ensures that they follow the correct procedure… Many individuals will incorrectly assert a claim for copyright infringement. However, copyright infringement is a niche protection right and is only afforded to ‘artistic output’. No formality is required to register this right in the United Kingdom, which is different than U.S. practice.

A PCT application is an international application that is filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which currently has 151 contracting states. A PCT application is filed with an appropriate Receiving Office within 12 months from the date of first filing (where applicable). The main advantage of a PCT application is that an applicant generally gets 30/31 months from the date of first filing to file individual National Phase applications in jurisdictions of interest. However, one must consider the costs associated with the PCT Process.

There is a plausible case that the US law on obviousness is indeed compatible with the EPO problem-and-solution approach. It could even be said that the steps of the problem-and-solution approach appear to have been inspired by US law and practice! Under present working styles, USPTO examiners concentrate on the claims and spend little or no time reading the description. If they are to initiate obviousness rejections using the problem-and-solution format they would have to change habits and consult the description to locate any effects related to the distinguishing features.

If you qualify for participation in the PPH it makes great sense to attempt to get into the program. Not only will your application move from wherever it is in the prosecution cycle to the front of the line, but the allowance rate for PPH applications is extremely high. The allowance rate for applications that entered the PPH were 84%, which compared to 53% for non-PPH applications. This spread in allowance rates is not coincidental. Because the U.S. patent examiner can leverage the work done by another examiner that has already allowed claims it would seem entirely logical to expect a very high allowance rate in the PPH.

President-Elect Donald Trump has announced that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement on his first day in office. So ends more than five years of often heated negotiations led by President Barack Obama’s administration as part of an overall strategy to strengthen the US position in the Pacific Rim region… Pulling out of the TPP is a missed opportunity for the US to pursue its IPR agenda in the Pacific Rim economies.

Whether to compensate inventors and how to compensate inventors for their innovative work have been important topics in some countries such as Germany, Japan and China. The purpose of compensating inventors is to motivate researchers and promote innovation. Yet this has been both complicated and difficult in practice. For instance, in China, the Chinese Patent Law and its Implementation Rule are the basis for inventor remuneration, and different authorities have also actively issued their own regulations. However, among the different laws, rules and regulations (hereinafter “Rules”), there exists quite some inconsistency, such as in the amount of the inventor remuneration. Under such circumstance, industries are curious how the Rules will be applied and interpreted by the courts in case of any disputes.

The IP5 is the name given to a forum of the five largest intellectual property offices in the world that was set-up to improve the efficiency of the examination process for patents worldwide. The top five Patent Offices (IP5) have recognized this internationalization phenomenon and many directives have been introduced to facilitate cooperation between the patent offices… For example, the IP5’s Common Citation Document (CCD) application now allows access of up-to-date citation data of all five patent offices.

For better or for worse, there is no such thing as a world-wide patent. There is, however, something that approximates a world-wide patent application that can ultimately result in a patent being obtained in most countries around the world. This patent application is known as an International Patent Application, or simply an International Application. The international treaty that authorizes the filing of a single patent application to be treated as a patent application in countries around the world is the Patent Cooperation Treaty, most commonly referred to as the PCT. You can file an International Application pursuant to the rules of the PCT and that application will effectively act as a world-wide patent application, or at least a patent application in all of those countries that have ratified the PCT, which is virtually all of the countries where you would want a patent anyway.

According to WIPO data, USPTO, EPO and KIPO are major ISAs for U.S. applicants; about 94% of intentional searches have been done by these three patent offices. U.S. applicants may consider the quality of search reports and cost of search fees as the most important factors in selecting an ISA. Search fees vary by ISA, for example, EPO’s rate is relatively high $2,125, USPTO’s rate is $2,080, and KIPO is well known to provide high quality earches with a relevantly competitive cost at $1,219.

An interview with Jim Pooley, former Deputy Director General of WIPO – The actual changes that we might have to accept in a truly globalized, harmonized system are not going to be that difficult for us. The real difficulty is getting everybody to agree on one set of best practices. That, it turns out, is a political road that is just as difficult now as it ever has been. But the goal is clear, the goal is compelling and I think all of us need to work as hard as we can to push things in that direction. First of all we’ve got to get the industrialized countries to agree on a single approach, or at least an understood and aligned approach, to a grace period. Once that happens I think the other issues that we have to deal with will fall into place. We have to keep in mind that while the politicians or diplomats argue with one another, we have sitting on the sidelines all of our clients who are cheering for harmonization. They want to see this happen. And at the end of the day politicians need to recognize it’s the users of the patent system that own it and we need to make sure that they get the system that they deserve.