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PCT System

More than 140 states have acceded to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and most of the countries that are economically relevant to patent applicants have joined the Treaty. A number of South American, Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries remain outside the PCT System.

The advantage of the PCT System is that before filing a high number of national applications, the applicant will be provided with a written opinion on the novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability of the invention. The biggest advantage is, however, that the applicant can postpone the decision on the geographical extension of the patent protection (and the associated costs) for 30 or 31 months from the priority date. The applicant will also have more time to consider the scope of protection for the patent.

When filing a PCT application, the applicant must pay a filing fee and a transmittal fee to the International Bureau of WIPO and a search fee to the International Searching Authority. The fees are the extra cost of the PCT System before filing any direct national or regional applications. At the same time, however, the PCT System provides applicants with other advantages, whicht may lead to substantial cost savings at a later stage. For example, restricting the scope of protection in connection with the filing of the national application may result in lower prosecution costs.

When filing an application in a designated country or region (the last stage of the PCT process), the applicant must, as for a direct national application, pay the application fee of the country concerned and submit a translation of the application. After that, the application will be treated like any other national application and the examiner of the national office will independently assess the novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability of the invention.

A Finnish applicant may file an international (PCT) application to the Finnish or Swedish Patent Office or the European Patent Office. The Finnish Patent Office has announced that if the first application has been a Finnish national application, the Finnish and PCT applications will be examined by different examiners. In this manner, the applicant will be provided with two opinions concerning the patentability of the invention.

The PCT application may be filed in Finnish, Swedish or English. However, the PCT application filed in Finnish or Swedish must be translated into English at a later stage. The timing of the translation depends on which Patent Office is selected as the Searching Authority.