hello in the following I would like to give you an introduction to the PCT the patent cooperation treaty first of all I would like to discuss with you what options are available to applicants who would like to seek international patent protection then I would like to explain in more detail what the PCT is all about why you would wish to consider using the PCT and what are the advantages of the PCT and at the end I would like to cover an outline some of the main procedural steps in the PCT system now if you're interested in the PCT and an international patent protection you probably have either made an invention yourself or you know of someone who has made an invention and you are interested in finding out how to best go about protecting it now you could simply start out with filing a national patent application and trying to obtain a national patent now would that be good enough I suppose it depends if you're really only interested in protecting your invention in a particular country and filing a national patent protection might be sufficient however if you're also interested in protecting that invention in other countries you need to consider filing for patent protection also in those other countries and the problem of obtaining international patent protection comes up now why do you need protection in multiple countries well that's essentially because of the principle of territoriality which applies in the international patent system and this principle means that if you obtain a patent in one country or in a particular territory you're really only protected in that one country if you need to be protected in other territories or countries you need to also get patents for those countries and territories so if you take an example if you have a US patent and someone is infringing your US patent you're protected against such infringes in the United States of America so you can either stop them or ask for compensation for whatever acts they have been taken however you would not necessarily be protected against infringing acts taken in other countries in Europe in Japan in China if you also want to be protected against such acts in those countries you need to obtain a patent in Europe in Japan in China as the case may be so as a result if your business tends to be more global if you're interested also in foreign markets you really need to consider obtaining international patent protection or patent protection in multiple countries so there are really two main options available to applicants out there to obtain international patent protection you can either file for protection under the Paris Convention an international treaty established in 1883 or through the PCT the patent cooperation treaty let's first take a look at the option going through the Paris Convention and how does the Paris Convention really works well the Paris Convention does international treaty basically sets up a system where a national of one of the...
