Background
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, which provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications. A patent application filed under the PCT is called an international application or a PCT application.
The filing of an international application results in an international search performed by a patent office, accompanied with a written opinion regarding the patentability of the invention which is the subject of the application. An applicant may also request an international preliminary examination performed by a patent office. The PCT does not provide that the searches and examinations are to be performed by one central patent office, as the WIPO does not perform searches and examinations. In contrast, the European Patent Convention (EPC) places the European Patent Office (EPO) in charge of performing searches and examinations for European patent applications.
Under the PCT, the international search and the optional international preliminary examination are conducted by different national or regional patent offices, referred to as the International Searching Authorities (ISA) and the International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) Applicants, based on nationality and on the Receiving Office where the application was filed, may have an opportunity to have the search performed by one of the ISAs.
Read more about this topic: Computer Programs And The Patent Cooperation Treaty
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