Administrative Instructions under the Patent Cooperation Treaty

Section 709
Means of Communication with the Applicant

(a)  The receiving Office shall, if it provides for such a service, send any notifications, invitations and other correspondence ("documents") to the applicant by electronic means in accordance with Annex F, unless the applicant requests to receive them by other means offered by the Office.

(b)  Where it appears to the receiving Office that a document sent to the applicant by electronic means was not successfully transmitted, the Office shall promptly resend the document by the same or another means.

(b-bis)  Where the receiving Office provides for such a service and the applicant so requests, the receiving Office may, instead of directly transmitting a document to the applicant, make it available for retrieval by the applicant in an electronic system in accordance with the standard set forth in section 5.1ter of Annex F.  In this case, the document shall be considered to have been transmitted to the applicant on the day when it was made available for retrieval by the applicant in that electronic system.  The receiving Office shall promptly alert the applicant by electronic means whenever a new document has been made available, unless the applicant requests otherwise.

(c)  When the electronic systems of the receiving Office are not available for the filing or retrieval of documents in electronic form or by electronic means, the Office shall, if possible, promptly publish information to that effect by reasonably available means.

(d)  Where agreed between the receiving Office and the International Bureau, the Office may furnish an electronic copy of a document to the International Bureau for transmission by electronic means to the applicant on its behalf.