Patents are the exclusive right granted to the patentees for their invention provided by the government for a Specific Period. The applicant may have a doubt that is there global patent protection for his invention. Certainly, there is nothing like one application whrough which you can protect your patent globally. But the applicant can protect his invention in each of the countries by filing his patent application in respective countries. For this, the applicant has to file his priority patent application to each of the countries within one year from the date of first filing of his invention.

The applicant may choose to file a PCT international patent application for his invention. The PCT is the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, associated with the World Intellectual Property Organisation(WIPO). It provides a way for filing patent applications internationally on its contracting states. A patent application filed under the PCT is called an international application or PCT application.

The patent applicant or an inventor can file a patent application worldwide. For which the applicant or the inventor has to file the patent application at their nationality country or their conventional country as priority patent application first. Based on the date of filing of priority date, the applicant or the inventor has to file a PCT application within 12 months.

The applicant can file an international patent application through WIPO (WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANISATION) WEBSITE WWW.WIPO.INT online or through the receiving offices at respective countries. The applicant has to file his patent application worldwide as a conventional patent application to several countries within 12 months of the priority date of filing priority patent application. Otherwise, they can apply for a PCT within 12 months from the date of filing of the patent priority application, thereby the applicant or inventor gets 30 months more to enter several countries with the single international patent application. The WIPO organization will provide ISR report (International Search Report) by which the applicants can also decide the countries of their interest.

• The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international treaty administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
• The PCT System makes it possible to seek patent protection for an invention simultaneously in a large number of countries by filing a single “international” patent application instead of filing several separate national or regional patent applications.
• The PCT System comprises 152 Contracting states.
• The granting of patents remains under the national or regional legislation of the national or regional patent offices. It is called the “national phase”.
• In the national phase, each patent office is responsible for processing the application in accordance with its national patent laws, and for deciding whether to grant patent protection. The time required for that processing varies across patent offices.

Applicants and patent offices of contracting states benefit from uniform formality requirements, international search, The fee associated with PCT Filing.

A close watch is required on the WIPO website regarding FEE changes.

supplementary international search and preliminary examination reports, and centralized international publication.