How to File a Patent Application in Other Countries? - Patent Cooperation Treaty, PCT
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In this video, Richard answers frequently asked questions about the PCT, or Patent Cooperation Treaty, patent application process. Hi! I’m Elizabeth Gearhart. I’m here with Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, an intellectual property firm that does patents trademarks and copyrights, both domestically and internationally, and we’re going to talk about a frequently asked question. So people often call and ask, “what is a PCT application?”
Richard – It is one of the more frequent questions we get. PCT stands for Patent Cooperation Treaty and it’s a way to file your patents internationally. So if you file a patent first in the US and you want to protect your idea in different countries, Europe, Japan, Canada, Mexico, you can do that and the PCT application is one way that people are able to protect their intellectual property internationally. Elizabeth – So it’s actually a treaty between the United States and all these other countries. Richard – Right. And virtually every country is a member of the PCT treaty. There’s a few that aren’t, in Latin America, I think Argentina is not, but for the most part filing an application under the PCT allows you to delay filing individual applications in each country where you want patent protections.
Elizabeth – So if I come to you and I want to get a patent on an invention and we file in the United States, say we start with the provisional application because that’s normally what we would do, right? And then a year later we file the utility application, when do I have to decide whether or not to file a PCT application? How much does that add to the cost?
Richard – So usually you’d want to file a PCT application within one year of your first filing, so when you file the utility, if you’ve done a provisional, right, you would file it at the same time as you file the utility application. Typically that gives you an additional 18 months to make a decision about whether or not you’re going to file the application in countries outside the US, so the PCT is a way to defer your foreign filing decisions for an additional 18 months. Elizabeth – So how much does that cost?
Richard – Typically it depends on a lot of factors, it depends on the page length, depends on the Search Authority, that is which country actually does the patent search that comes with the PCT, but in general it’s around $2,500 for the WIPO fee or the International Search Authority fee and then Gearhart Law also charges a fee on top of that to process the paperwork and monitor the application.
Elizabeth – So let’s say I had a typical 25 page application with 20 claims and I wanted to file a PCT, about how much would that one be?
Richard – Probably about twenty to twenty-five hundred dollars.
Elizabeth – And then what would the Gearhart law fees be?
Richard – It would be about eight hundred dollars, so a little over three thousand.
Elizabeth – And then I have a year and a half, so I guess the purpose of this is to say, okay let me see if I can commercialize this in the US. And if it looks like it’s catching on in the US and I’m getting sales, then maybe there are some other countries I want to file in.
Richard – That’s part of the reason for filing the PCT. In the patent world the name of the game is deferring fees and costs as long as you can, because you do want to see if there’s a market for your product in Europe or China or Canada before you pay the patent fees to prosecute the application there. Another piece of it too is if you’re looking for investor funding and the product has global appeal and you’re trying to appeal to investors, lots of times having the opportunity to file globally with your technology makes your project more appealing.
Please watch the video to hear the rest of our conversation, or visit our website to read the rest of the conversation transcript at:
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