PCT Highlights

PCT recent and future developments

New PCT Contracting State Uruguay (country code: UG)

On 7 October 2024, Uruguay deposited its instrument of accession to the PCT, thus becoming the 158^th Contracting State of the PCT, and on 7 January 2025, Uruguay will become bound by the PCT.  Consequently, any international application filed on or after 7 January 2025 automatically includes the designation of Uruguay. The instrument of accession also contained a reservation that Uruguay will not be bound by Chapter II of the PCT. On the same date, Uruguay also joined the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, becoming effective on 7 January 2025.

For further information, please consult the PCT Newsletter 10/2024 .

PCT MIA meeting

The 31^th session of the Meeting of International Authorities (MIA) under the PCT was held in Beijing, China, on 16 to 17 October 2024. The working documents and the Summary by the Chair can be found on the WIPO website.

For further information, please consult the PCT Newsletter 10/2024 .

PCT Assembly

The 56th PCT Union Assembly took place from July 9 and to July 17 as a hybrid meeting. The PCT Assembly adopted amendments to the following:

• PCT Rule 26: Narrowing the scope of exceptions from the requirement of the receiving Office to invite the applicant to furnish a translation of the abstract and text matter of the drawings into the language in which the international application is to be published. When the abstract or text matter of drawings is filed in a different language from that of the international application but in a language accepted by the International Searching Authority, the receiving Office will be able to issue an invitation to furnish a translation of the abstract or text matter of the drawings to ensure that the international application is published in a single language. For further information, see document PCT/WG/17/7 and paragraphs 23 and 24 and Annex I of document PCT/WG/17/21. This amendment will enter into force on 1 July 2025 and will apply to any international application with an international filing date that is on or after that date.
• PCT Rules 33 and 64: Broadening the definition of relevant prior art for international search and preliminary examination to include non-written disclosures. For further information, see document PCT/WG/17/10 and paragraphs 25 and 26 and Annex II of document PCT/WG/17/21. These amendments will enter into force on 1 January 2026 along with the amendments to the definition of the minimum documentation that the International Searching Authority shall consult during international search (refer to PCT Newsletter 07-08/2023) and will apply to any international application in which the search report is established, or the declaration under Article 17(2)(a) is made, on or after that date.
• PCT Rule 89bis: Allowing an Office, other than the International Bureau, to require international applications and subsequently filed documents to be submitted in electronic form only, or to require that any document submitted on paper is submitted again in electronic form within two months. For further information, see document PCT/WG/17/15 and paragraphs 15 and 16 of document PCT/WG/17/21. This amendment will enter into force on 1 July 2025.
• PCT Rule 92: Enabling the International Bureau to correspond with applicants or Offices for certain communications in any of the 10 languages of international publication, instead of in either English or French only. The communications where the International Bureau will be able to correspond in additional languages to English or French will be set out in the Administrative Instructions. For further information, see document PCT/WG/17/6 and paragraphs 21 and 22 of document PCT/WG/17/21. This amendment will enter into force on 1 July 2025.

The Assembly also reviewed the criteria set out in item 5 of the Schedule of Fees for establishing the lists of States whose nationals and residents are eligible for PCT fee reductions and decided to maintain these criteria and review them again in five years, as required by the Schedule. The Assembly also adopted modifications to the Directives for Updating the Lists of States Meeting the Criteria for Reduction of Certain PCT Fees to refer to the annual series of meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO instead of a specific time during the year (refer to document PCT/A/56/1 and for details as to changes in eligibility document PCT/WG/17/5 Rev.).

The meeting documents are available.

The New WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge: PCT Implications

WIPO Member States on 24 May 2024 approved a new Treaty related to intellectual property (IP), genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. It is the first WIPO Treaty to address the interface between intellectual property, genetic resources and traditional knowledge and the first WIPO Treaty to include provisions specifically for Indigenous Peoples as well as local communities.

With regard to implications for the PCT, please note that an Agreed Statement contained in Footnote 4 of the new Treaty (under Article 7) invites “to consider the need for amendments to the Regulations under the PCT and/or the Administrative Instructions thereunder with a view towards providing an opportunity for applicants who file an international application under the PCT designating a PCT Contracting State which, under its applicable national law, requires the disclosure of genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, to comply with any formality requirements related to such disclosure requirement either upon filing of the international application, with effect for all such Contracting States, or subsequently, upon entry into the national phase before an Office of any such Contracting States.” For more information, refer to PCT Newsletter 2024/06 .

1 July 2024 Amendments to the PCT Regulations

The amendments to the PCT Regulations that entered into force on 1 July 2024 are as follows:

• Amendments to PCT Rules 26 and 29, relating to the procedure when an international application contains parts in different languages and all such languages are accepted by the competent receiving Office;
• Amendments to the French text of Rule 82quater.3(c) to resolve an inconsistency between the English and French texts of this Rule.

A PowerPoint presentation showing the amendments to the PCT Regulations is available.

PCT and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

With reference to the World IP Day 2024 (“IP and the SDGs: Building our common future with innovation and creativity”), information on the PCT and the SDGs is available, including several representative examples of published PCT applications which relate to specific SDGs. The information is based on a larger report on Mapping Innovations: Patents and the Sustainable Development Goals.

PCT Filings in 2023

In 2023, PCT filings decreased by 1.8% over 2022, totalling 272,600. China continued to be the largest origin of PCT filings, with 69,610 applications filed (-0.6% growth over 2022), followed by the United States of America (U.S.), with 55,678 applications (-5.3%). Japan (48,879, -2.9%), the Republic of Korea (22,288, +1.2%) and Germany (16,916, -3.2%) again held the third, fourth and fifth rankings, respectively. The top 10 countries of origin, followed by their respective percentage share of all PCT filings in 2023, were as follows:

Beyond the top 10, India (#11) saw strong growth (3,791 applications, +44.6%) in PCT filings.

For information on the number of filings from all countries, including a comparison with filings in 2022, please refer to Annex 1 of WIPO Press Release PR/2024/914 and the PCT Yearly Review 2024.

PCT Text Processing Task Force

The first session of the newly created PCT Text Processing Task Force took place as a virtual meeting from 29 to 31 January 2024. The aim of the Task Force is to advise the International Bureau on how to update the filing, processing and publication requirements within the PCT to facilitate more effective and widespread filing and processing of international applications in full text format in the international phase. Documents for the session are available.

eGuide – new version of the PCT Applicant’s Guide

In order to increase data processing efficiency and provide users with enhanced functions and a better navigation experience, the International Bureau has created a fully electronic version of the PCT Applicant’s Guide, called the “eGuide”.  Applicants and Offices are encouraged to exclusively use the new eGuide and change any bookmarks linking to the previous PDF Annexes of the traditional Guide to the corresponding places of the eGuide. Since 1 December 2023, the International Bureau has discontinued the updating of the traditional PDF Guide content.

IP data reports 2024 and 2023

The PCT Yearly Review 2024 summarizes PCT activities and developments in 2023. It contains a comprehensive set of statistics relating to PCT filings and the performance of the international patent system. The special theme in this year’s edition of the PCT Yearly Review provides a descriptive analysis of “The technological composition of PCT applications”.

The World Intangible Investment Highlights reports together with underlying data from the Global INTAN-Invest Database offer novel, up-to-date cross-country, quarterly and annual measures of investment into intangible assets, including those not included in official statistics.

The World Intellectual Property Report (WIPR) 2024 on “Making innovation policy work for development”, is available now (consult for more information).

This year’s Global Innovation Index 2024,  providing performance measures and ranking 133 economies on their innovation ecosystems, is available now (consult for more information).

The World Intellectual Property Indicators 2023: This report analyses IP activity around the globe. Drawing on 2022 filing, registration and renewals statistics from national and regional IP offices and WIPO, it covers patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, microorganisms, plant variety protection and geographical indications. The report also draws on survey data and industry sources to give a picture of activity in the creative economy. For highlights of the report, please consult the press release.

The WIPO’s IP Facts and Figures for 2023, providing an overview of IP activity, using the latest available year of complete statistics, is now also available.

PCT Success Stories

Do you have a PCT success story that you would like to share with us? If so, you can now share your story with WIPO and other users of the PCT about how the PCT helped you to seek protection for your invention. WIPO will highlight a selection of the submitted success stories on the PCT website and on WIPO social media. For further information, consult the dedicated webpage on PCT Success Stories.

ePCT and electronic filing update

A new version of ePCT has been released late July 2024 improving inter alia self-service on the right to practice as an agent.

A new ePCT Business Continuity Service is available since 2023 as an alternative mode of filing international application and submitting post-filing documents at the International Bureau and other ePCT-participating Offices, in particular, to the limitation of fax services to emergency situations by 1 January 2020 (and also, for the rare cases that ePCT is unavailable) (further information is available on the ePCT Business Continuity Service and on limited fax services ).

The following Offices now accept international applications filed using the ePCT-Filing function in ePCT:  Offices accepting ePCT-Filing

ePCT has best-in-class validation features – all data checks are made against the International Bureau’s database at the time of preparation of the application. To access the ePCT System or read more about the new features for applicants and patent Offices .  Push notification as a new method for strong authentication was added in April 2022.  A series of new ePCT video tutorials for IP Offices and applicants is now available.

Technical aspects and reference data for electronic filing and managing PCT applications and settings at participating Offices, in particular, detailed Office profiles are available. Office profiles are not limited to Offices accepting ePCT-filing.  

Reminders

Learn the PCT video series

A series of 29 short videos (approximately 15 minutes each) presented by Matthias Reischle-Park, Deputy Director, PCT Legal and User Relations Division, WIPO [YouTube] (with subtitles now available  in Chinese and Japanese for all videos, in Korean and Russian for a growing number of videos, and also a Portuguese-subtitled version prepared by INPI Brazil and an Arabic-subtitled version prepared by the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP)). This series is:

• designed to provide a basic introduction to important aspects and issues in the international phase and national phase of PCT processing; and
• closely follows material covered during basic PCT training seminars and will be particularly useful for those who have not attended such seminars in person, for small and medium-sized enterprises, and for PCT users and potential users in developing and least-developed countries.

A webpage with links to a collection of 15 (free of charge) webinar recordings on aspects of the PCT (and associated materials) carried out by US-based PCT expert and WIPO consultant Carl Oppedahl is also available.

PCT Webinars

• PCT Webinars are used to deliver PCT information, training and updates in ten languages free of charge; recorded webinars are available at PCT Webinars; a special series of webinars: “Exploring the PCT”, with an advanced PCT audience in mind, began in April 2021 in all 10 PCT publication languages.
• WIPO will be pleased to organize private PCT seminars for your company or firm; for seminars open to the public, please consult the PCT Seminar Calendar. PCT presentations within the context of Roving Webinars on all WIPO Services and Initiatives were added in May 2020 and Advanced Webinars with regional focus in October/November 2020.
• Carl Oppedahl, an experienced patent attorney (Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC), WIPO PCT Consultant and PCT user, organized a series of 16 ePCT training webinars starting 2 March 2023. The recordings and supporting documents for this webinar series are available.
• In December 2023, Carl also organized a free series of four webinars about PCT forms. The recordings of the four webinars are available.
• A new series of 7 PCT webinars by Carl Oppedahl is starting in November 2024.

WIPO IP Diagnostics

As part of WIPO’s on-going effort to strengthen its program of support for the business sector, WIPO developed, in collaboration with the International Trade Center (ITC) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), WIPO IP Diagnostics. WIPO IP Diagnostics is a free, self-assessment tool designed to help small businesses identify their IP assets and determine how to protect, manage and leverage these assets to unlock new commercial opportunities.

Introductory PCT Distance learning course

• The DL101PCT 4 hour course provides an introduction and general overview of PCT; it is complemented with self-assessment tools that are strategically placed throughout the course to measure understanding and progress and it is available in ten languages. 

Supplementary International Search

• Requesting one or more supplementary international searches (SIS), during the international phase procedure, expands both the linguistic and technical scope of the search
• SIS addresses PCT applicants’ concerns about new prior art being found once they have already entered the national phase and provides extra information in cases where the applicant believes that the commercial value of an invention warrants the additional expense in the international phase.
• Get an introduction into SIS by a short video Video or the relevant part of the Applicant’s Guide.

The PATENTSCOPE database

• PATENTSCOPE offers free access to over 5 million PCT applications as part of its collection of 119 million patent documents.
• Contains the national patent data collections of 81 national or regional patent Offices.
• The interface features a number of powerful tools, including cross-lingual and chemical compound (including substructures and Markush) searches, XML data and hyperlinks to citations in international search reports, as well as machine translation. Information on patent families and non-patent literature was added and extended recently.
• Information on national phase processing of PCT applications is now available for 84 Offices.  Global Dossier public information is available for 10 Offices.
• The redesigned version of the Patent Register Portal contains legal status information for over 200 national and regional collections, including a search functionality by PCT application number.  The new tool WIPO Inspire provides a collection of reports on different functionalities of patent databases.

DAS

The WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS) is an electronic system allowing priority documents and similar documents to be securely exchanged between participating intellectual property (IP) offices, including for PCT purposes (further information). DAS is generally free of charge and simplifies providing priority documents previously exchanged by paper. Many Offices joined DAS recently (consult WIPO DAS News).

PCT-Patent Prosecution Highway Pilot (PCT-PPH)

PCT-PPH pathways enable applicants to request a fast track examination procedure.

• 50 per cent of overall PPH is PCT-PPH.
• Data from selected Offices show that PCT-PPH requests have a higher grant rate and a higher first Office action allowance rate than all applications combined. The average pendency rate from the PCT-PPH request to final decision less than for all applications combined consult JPO PPH webpage: and the PCT Yearly Review 2024 , C28
• Further available: video on user experience, Carl Oppedahl [YouTube].

More about other worksharing initiatives among Offices.

WIPO GREEN

A platform that matches owners of environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) with those seeking licensing or partnership agreements. Listing your ESTs in the WIPO GREEN platform is free of charge and offers a practical additional means for seeking potential licensees or partners.

WIPO Arbitration & Mediation Center

Gives 25% reduction in the registration and administration fees for its alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services where at least one party to the dispute has been named as an applicant or inventor in a published PCT application (PCT Newsletter, June 2012, page 8).

WIPO Inventor Assistance Program

The WIPO Inventor Assistance Program (IAP) aims at matching developing country inventors and small businesses with patent attorneys providing pro bono legal assistance.