The purpose of the Patent Cooperation Treaty is to establish a cooperation system in the field of patents to help inventors, industrial enterprises and patent offices around the world avoid a lot of duplication of work caused by the examination and approval of patents by various countries according to their own legal procedures. According to the provisions of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, nationals or residents of any contracting party can apply for international patents in their own language to the patent office of their country. When filing an international application, the applicant must comply with the format requirements detailed in the Patent Cooperation Treaty and specify the name of the contracting party (designated country) where he hopes the application will take effect. Filing an international application has the same effect as the applicant filing applications in the countries designated in the international application.
After receiving the international application, the patent office of the receiving country will conduct a formal review of it, and if it is qualified, it will be transferred to the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization. At the same time, the application will be transferred to the international search unit designated by the Patent Cooperation Treaty Union for search. The procedures of the Patent Cooperation Treaty are of great benefit to applicants, patent offices of various countries and the public. International search reports and international preliminary examination reports greatly reduce or eliminate the work of patent offices of various countries. Since each international application is published together with the international search report, the public with interests can make their own judgment in time whether the invention meets the conditions for granting a patent.
my country joined the treaty on October 1, 1993, and the treaty came into force for my country on January 1, 1994. In 2018, Chinese applicants submitted 53,345 Patent Cooperation Treaty applications, second only to the United States’ 56,142 applications, ranking second in the world.