What is the international patent application process? How is the fee charged?

As we all know, patents have strong geographical protection. Patents registered in one country may not be useful in another country. At this time, in order to protect our patent right, we need to apply for an international patent. What is the international patent application process? How should I apply? 1. The Paris Convention was adopted by submitting a national application based on China's application to the respondent country within a certain period (65,438+02 months for invention and 6 months for utility model and design). In this way, applicants may not have enough time to prepare documents and raise fees. 2. An application filed in the manner specified in the PCT is called an international application, and it can be designated to file an application to multiple treaty member States at the same time. 1. Apply for a patent in China first According to the relevant regulations, an individual or unit in China may file a national application with the China Patent Office after completing an invention and creation. Then, request to apply for the priority of international patent within 12 months; You can also submit an international application directly, but you must specify China and foreign countries in the application. The cost of submitting the PCT international application is lower and the procedure is simpler, because only one international application needs to be submitted through the PCT channel, which saves the trouble of submitting the national application to each country separately. 2. Preparation fee At present, on average, each patent application needs to pay 4000-5000 dollars in one country and 20000-25000 dollars in five countries; We also have to pay the fees for the international phase of PCT, including the transmission fee, retrieval fee and international preliminary examination fee of about 265,438+000 yuan charged by China Patent Office, and the basic fee, designation fee and handling fee of about 65,438+065,438+050 yuan charged by the International Bureau. If it is an international application filed by an individual from China; The fees charged by the International Bureau can be reduced by 75%. 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. When the applicant only needs to apply for a patent in one country or several countries, it is appropriate to use the Paris Convention. It is worth noting that the PCT international application does not include the design patent.