At present, there are generally two ways for China applicants to apply for patents abroad:
The first is the traditional method, that is, the practice of the Paris Convention: the applicant should submit an application to the patent offices where several Paris Convention member countries are located within 12 months from the priority date and pay the corresponding fees. In this way, applicants may not have enough time to prepare documents and raise fees.
The second method is PCT: the applicant directly submits a PCT international application written in Chinese or English to China National Intellectual Property Administration, China within 12 months from the priority date. After the international application is confirmed, it will have the effect of formal national application in all PCT member countries.
What is a PCT patent application?
PCT is the abbreviation of Patent Cooperation Treaty, which is an international treaty on patents. According to the provisions of PCT, patent applicants can submit international patent applications through PCT and apply for patents in many countries.
PCT includes international phase and national phase.
The international stage is the first stage of the international application examination and approval procedure, including the necessary procedures such as international application acceptance, formal examination, international retrieval and international publication, and optional international preliminary examination procedures.
The national stage is the second stage of the international application approval process. The national phase is held in the patent office of the country where the applicant wishes to obtain the patent right (called the designated bureau or the selected bureau). Including the procedures for entering the national phase and the examination and approval procedures at each designated bureau or selected bureau.
The main procedure for an international application to enter the national phase is to submit the translation of the international application documents and pay the prescribed national fees according to the regulations of various countries.
After the international application enters the national stage, the patent offices of various countries will examine it according to the provisions of their own patent laws and regulations and decide whether to grant the patent right.
It should be noted that the patent applicant can only apply for a patent through PCT, and cannot directly obtain a patent through PCT. In order to obtain a patent in a certain country, the patent applicant must also go through the formalities of entering the country, and the patent office of that country will apply for the patent.
If it meets the requirements of the patent law of this country, please review and grant the patent right.
What benefits does PCT bring to patent applicants?
A. You can apply for a patent in many countries only by submitting an international patent application, instead of submitting a patent application to each country separately, which provides convenience for patent applicants to apply for a patent abroad.
B when filing an ordinary patent application in a foreign country, the patent applicant must file a patent application with the patent offices of various countries within 12 months after the first filing of the patent application. Through PCT, the patent applicant can go through the formalities of international patent application entering each country within 30 months after filing the patent application for the first time, thus prolonging the time to enter the national phase. During this period, the patent applicant can investigate the market, the commercial prospect of the invention and other factors, and decide whether to continue to apply for foreign patents, and then spend a lot of money to enter the national stage. You can save money if you decide not to apply for a patent abroad after investigation.
C an international patent application must be searched by an international search agency in order to obtain a high-quality international search report. The international search report gives one or more existing technical documents, so that the patent applicant can not only know the status of the existing technology, but also preliminarily judge whether the invention has the prospect of granting a patent. If the international application passes the international preliminary examination, the patent applicant can also get a high-standard international preliminary examination report made by the international preliminary examination unit. If the international preliminary examination report shows that the invention does not have novelty, creativity and industrial practicability, the patent applicant may consider not entering the national phase again in order to save costs.
D only need to pay the patent application fee to the acceptance bureau, but not to the patent offices of all countries that require patent protection, which simplifies the payment procedures.
E in some countries, the cost of applying for the national phase of PCT is lower than that of ordinary applications.
F. The languages of international patent applications can be Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. China applicants can apply for international patents in Chinese and English, which provides convenience for foreign-funded enterprises in China to apply for patents. How to choose the way to apply for foreign patents?
When the applicant wants an invention to be protected by more than five countries (generally more than five countries), it is appropriate to use the PCT approach. Because only one international application needs to be submitted to the Chinese Patent Office through PCT, the trouble of submitting national applications to each country is avoided. This is advantageous when the applicant only needs to apply for a patent in one country or several countries.
The method of using the Paris Convention is appropriate.
Cost comparison of applying for foreign patents through PCT and traditional Paris Convention.
Note: 1 CHF)= 7 yuan RMB.
Second, there are many kinds of patents.
The price is different.
You must think it over carefully before you apply.
In fact, some patents are difficult to industrialize.
If you apply, you are wasting money.
I suggest you think it over before applying.
But ordinary patents don't have much money.
The following are the specific costs:
Patent charging items and standards
(Amount: RMB)
Internal division
(1) Application fee
1. Invention patent 900
Printing fee 50
2. 500 utility model patents
3. Design patent 500
(two) the maintenance fee for the application for a patent for invention is 300 yuan every year.
(3) The examination fee for an application for a patent for invention is 2,500 yuan.
(4) Examination fee
1. Invention patent 1000
2. 300 utility model patents
3. Design patent 300
(5) Describe the project change fee.
1. Changes of inventors, applicants and patentees 200
2. Changes in the entrustment relationship between patent agencies and agents 50 pages
(6) The priority claim fee is 80 per item.
(7) The claim fee for restoring rights is 1000.
(8) Cost of cancellation request
1. Invention patent right 30
2. Patent right of utility model 20
3. Design patent right 20
(nine) the request fee for invalidation
1. Invention patent 3000
2. Patent right of utility model 1500
3. Design patent 1500
(10) Compulsory license request fee
1. Invention patent 300
2. 200 utility model patents
(eleven) the request fee for compulsory licensing award is 300 yuan.
(12) Patent registration, printing and printing expenses
1. Invention patent 255
2. The utility model patent 205
3. Design patent 205
(XIII) Surcharge
1. The first extension request fee is 300 yuan per month.
The fee for applying for extension is 2000 yuan per month.
2. The claim surcharge is increased by 1 1 per piece.
3. The manual surcharge will be increased by 50 per page from 3 1 page.
Starting from 30 1 page, the income per page will increase 100.
(14) Annual fee
1. Invention patent
1-3 years 900