Question:

What does an applicant who uses the Patent Cooperation Treaty gain the benefit of?

Answer:

An applicant who uses the Patent Cooperation Treaty gains the benefit of:

* (A) a delay in the time when papers must be submitted to the national offices;

* (B) an international search (to judge the level of the relevant prior art) and a written opinion on the question of whether the claimed invention appears to be novel, to involve an inventive step (to be non-obvious), and to be industrially applicable before having to expend resources for filing fees, translations and other costs;

* (C) a delay in the expenditure of fees;

* (D) additional time for research;

* (E) additional time to evaluate financial, marketing, commercial and other considerations; and

* (F) the option of obtaining international preliminary examination.

Chapter Details:

The answer to this question can be found in chapter 1800 of the MPEP. This chapter covers the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

The answer is from the 9th Edition, Revision 07.2015. Depending on future changes to the MPEP, the question and answer may or may not be applicable in later Editions or revisions.

Section Summary:

This question and answer comes from section 1893 of the MPEP.  The following is a brief summary of section 1893.

1893 National Stage (U.S. National Application Filed Under 35 U.S.C. 371)

There are three types of U.S. national applications: a national stage application under 35 U.S.C. 371, a regular domestic national application filed under 35 U.S.C. 111(a), and a provisional application filed under 35 U.S.C. 111(b). This section covers the benefits of using the Patent Cooperation Treaty as well as the identification of the national stage application.