PCT Update 2012 April 2012 QuanLing Sim Head

PCT Update 2012 April 2012 Quan-Ling Sim Head, PCT Outreach and User Relations Section

2 What’s New in 2012 Update on PCT membership and statistics PCT rule changes e. PCT Licensing Third party observations Office to office feedback PCT-PPH PATENTSCOPE Future PCT changes / improvements

3 144 PCT Contracting States Albania Algeria Angola Antigua and Barbuda Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic People's Republic of Korea Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Estonia Finland France Gabon Gambia Kenya Georgia Kyrgyzstan Germany Lao People’s Dem Rep. Ghana Latvia Greece Lesotho Grenada Liberia Guatemala Libya Guinea Liechtenstein Guinea-Bissau Lithuania Honduras Luxembourg Hungary Madagascar Iceland Malawi India Malaysia Indonesia Mali Ireland Malta Israel Mauritania Italy Mexico Japan Monaco Kazakhstan Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Namibia Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria Norway Oman Papua New Guinea Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Republic of Korea Republic of Moldova Romania Rwanda Russian Federation Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines San Marino Sao Tomé e Principe Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Tajikistan Thailand The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Togo Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United Republic of Tanzania United States of America Uzbekistan Viet Nam Zambia Zimbabwe

4 Countries not yet PCT Contracting States Afghanistan Andorra Argentina Bahamas Bangladesh Bhutan Bolivia Brunei Darussalam Burundi Cambodia Cape Verde Democratic Republic of Congo Djibouti Eritrea Ethiopia Fiji Guyana Haiti Iran (Islamic Republic of) Iraq Jamaica Jordan Kiribati Kuwait Lebanon Maldives Marshall Islands Mauritius Micronesia Myanmar Nauru Nepal Pakistan Palau Panama Paraguay Samoa Saudi Arabia Solomon Islands Somalia South Sudan Suriname Timor-Leste Tonga Tuvalu Uruguay Vanuatu Venezuela Yemen (49)

5 Update on ISAs/IPEAs The Israel Patent Office will become operational as an ISA/IPEA as from 1 June 2012 For international applications filed with RO/IL or RO/IB on or after 1 June 2012 by applicants who are eligible to file with RO/IL

6 PCT Applications Record filings in 2011 181, 900 applications 10. 7% increase over 2010 Fastest growth since 2005

7 Filings by Country of Origin (2011) (estimate) Examples of increases in certain national Offices CN: +33. 4 % JP: + 21. 0 % US: +8. 0 % KR: +8. 0 % DE: + 5. 7 %

8 Top PCT Applicants (2011) 1. ZTE--CN (2826) 2. Panasonic--JP (2463) 3. Huawei--CN (1831) 4. Sharp--JP (1755) 5. Bosch--DE (1518) 6. Qualcomm--US (1494) 7. Toyota--JP (1417) 8. LG Electronics--KR (1336) 9. Philips--NL (1148) 10. Ericsson--SE (1116) 11. NEC--JP (1056) 12. Siemens--DE (1039) 13. Mitsubishi Electric--JP (834) 14. BASF--DE (773) 15. Samsung Electronics--KR (757) 16. Nokia--FI (698) 17. IBM--US (661) 18. HP--US (591) 19. 3 M--US (563) 20. Hitachi--JP (547)

9 PCT Rule Changes 2012 (1) Entry into force on July 1, 2012 (1) Minor housekeeping amendments related to priority documents and incorporation by reference (Rules 17. 1(bbis) and 20. 7(b)) (2) Inclusion of Chinese patent documents in the PCT minimum documentation Amended Rule 34 Applies to all international searches carried out on or after July 1, 2012

10 PCT Rule Changes 2012 (2) (3) Excuse of delay in meeting PCT time limits New Rule 82 quater (Force Majeure) Case by case determination by Offices Does not apply to the 12 month priority period Does not apply to the time limit for national phase entry No fee payment required Applies to all PCT applications for which the 6 -month time limit for the submission of evidence expires on or after July 1, 2012

11 e. PCT (1) WIPO online service that provides secure electronic access to the files of PCT applications maintained by the International Bureau In the January 2012 edition of the PCT Newsletter, it was announced that e. PCT could be used by any interested applicant in respect of PCT applications filed as from 1 January 2009 Secure access via e. PCT private services requires a WIPO user account and valid digital certificate Access via e. PCT public services for online document upload requires only a basic WIPO user account (no additional authentication is required).

12 e. PCT (2) – Main Features Up-to-date bibliographic data and status information View processing status of documents Uploaded documents are immediately visible in the file view Automatic generation of a signed cover letter for uploaded documents to comply with PCT Rule 92. 1 requirement Manage access rights Download individual documents or packages Secure messaging for contact with WIPO Processing Team Leave private notes invisible to the IB and not appearing as part of the application file History of actions taken Customizable notification preferences (e-mail warnings) Online actions for withdrawals (PCT applications and priority claims) and Rule 92 bis changes

13 e. PCT (3) – Future Improvements Online web filing of new PCT applications NOT currently possible to file PCT applications using e. PCT Further online actions, e. g. , withdrawal of Demand, designations and/or elections, request to indicate availability for licensing, etc Third party observations Extension of e. PCT to interested Offices in their various capacities (RO, ISA, SISA, IPEA, DO, EO)

14 PCT Online Document Upload Existing online document upload (separate from e. PCT) to be decommissioned in July 2012 Document upload integrated in e. PCT WIPO User Account (public or private) required to use e. PCT document upload

15 Sign-up Now for e. PCT https: //pct. wipo. int/e. PCT video tutorials

16 Licensing Indications Applicants can indicate the availability of a PCT application for licensing New Form PCT/IB/382 “Request for indication of availability for licensing purposes” Available as from January 1, 2012 Can be submitted at any time prior to the expiration of 30 months from priority The licensing-related information will be published in the application bibliographic data searchable in PATENTSCOPE

17 Third Party Observations (1) Allows third parties to submit prior art observations relevant to novelty and inventive step Limited to the international phase Objective is to provide national Offices with the most complete information possible on which to base their decisions

18 Third Party Observations (2) Main Features Web-based system using web-forms in PATENTSCOPE Free-of-charge Third party identity may be withheld from the applicant or the public Submissions possible until the expiration of 28 months from the priority date Third-party supplied documents will not be available via PATENTSCOPE but will be made available to International Authorities and national Offices

19 Third Party Observations (3) Role of the International Bureau Check for spam Notifies the applicant of submission of observations Makes observations available in PATENTSCOPE Sends to national Offices observations, cited documents, and applicant responses Expected launch in July 2012

20 Office to Office Quality Feedback System being developed that would allow national Offices to provide quality-related feedback to International Authorities (ISA/IPEA/SISA) Offices providing feedback would upload a file to the International Bureau using PCT Electronic Data Interchange (PCT-EDI) Feedback will then be communicated by the International Bureau to the International Authority concerned

21 PCT-PPH (1) Patent Prosecution Highway originally conceived as a bilateral agreement between two patent Offices Accelerated patent prosecution in the office of second filing based on the work product of the first office PCT-PPH is an expansion of the original PPH whereby accelerated patent prosecution may be available on the basis of positive PCT work products, e. g. , written opinion, IPRP Ch. I or Ch. II http: //www. wipo. int/pct/en/filing/pct_pph. html

22 PCT-PPH (2) JPO statistics (Jan-June 2011) Average pendency from PPH request to final decision Non-PPH: 33. 4 months PPH: 7. 4 months PCT-PPH: 3. 5 months Grant rate Non-PPH: 58. 1% PPH: 68. 3% PCT-PPH: 93. 6%

23 PCT-PPH (3) USPTO statistics (Jan-June 2011) Average pendency from PPH request to final decision Non-PPH: 33. 5 months PPH: 11. 6 months PCT-PPH: 5. 5 months Grant rate Non-PPH: 47% PPH: 89% PCT-PPH: 96%

24 PCT-PPH (4) “Using PCT-PPH to get US patents faster”—Carl Oppedahl http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Xn. SShs. UHXss Discussions under way to develop a uniform (plurilateral) scheme “PPH 2. 0” designed to streamline and simplify the multitude of co-existing bilateral PPH arrangements

25 PATENTSCOPE (1) National/regional patent collections in PATENTSCOPE (28) Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation including USSR, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay, Viet Nam, ARIPO, EPO, LATIPAT More than 10 million national and regional patents and applications searchable, including 2 million published PCT applications On-the-fly translations of PCT descriptions and claims (and patents in national collections) in 52 languages via Google Translate Special tool for Korean to English applications Machine translation tool for titles and abstracts (cut/paste) En/Fr, Fr/En, En/Cn, Cn/En currently Kr/En, Jp/En coming soon

26 PATENTSCOPE (2) New customizable interface for those creating free account Can save settings (such as default interface and length of search list), save queries, download result list, etc. National phase information from 43 countries + 3 IGOs CLIR (Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval) Allows you to search a term or phrase and its variants in English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Portuguese while entering query in only 1 language Search PATENTSCOPE on your smartphone http: //www. wipo. int/patentscope/search/mobile/index. jsf

27 PATENTSCOPE (3) Corpus of English/French PCT titles and abstracts (20 years of data) available for purchase, or free for research purposes 8 million parallel segments/170 million words Will contribute to improving quality of machine translation systems for patent documents Other language pairs planned

28 PCT Governance Structure Meeting of International Authorities Meeting: February 8 -10, 2012 http: //www. wipo. int/meetings/en/details. jsp? meeting_id=24745 PCT Working Group Meeting: May 29 -June 1, 2012 http: //www. wipo. int/meetings/en/details. jsp? meeting_id=25017 PCT Union Assembly Meeting: October 1 -9, 2012

29 Future PCT Changes / Improvements Color drawings e. PCT Collaborative search and examination Pilot project between the EPO, KIPO and USPTO on the co-production of the ISR and the Written Opinion for PCT applications Sequence listing standard

30 Questions / Feedback PCT Information Service Telephone: (+41 -22) 338 83 38 Facsimile: (+41 -22) 338 83 39 E-mail: pct. infoline@wipo. int Today’s webinar and slides will be available for download from the PCT webinar page over the next few days: http: //www. wipo. int/pct/en/seminar/webinars/index. html Webinar survey