How To File International Patent Rights?

You may pursue numerous routes if you wish to get a patent in a nation other than the United States. These are what they are:

1. You may directly file in the nation of your choice.
2. If the nation is a PCT member, you can submit a PCT application and specify your preferred countries later.
3. You can submit a utility patent application in the United States and complete items one and/or two within a year of the application’s submission.

There are benefits and drawbacks to each of these choices, which should be carefully weighed. Timing is the most crucial factor to consider. Your foreign filing rights are lost forever if you don’t take the necessary actions in the periods necessary to protect them. If a patent application is already pending in the US or another PCT member nation, you have one year from the priority application’s filing date to submit a PCT application. Because it allows applicants to wait up to 30 months from the priority date dates before a choice must be made regarding which nations to seek patent protection in, the PCT is frequently used to maintain worldwide filing rights.

The PCT has the following benefits:

1. Permits the applicant to postpone paying the cost of submitting overseas patent applications.
2. Offers a review procedure that helps the applicant determine whether their invention is likely patentable before spending more money on additional review.
3. Offers the applicant the chance to make changes and modifications to the application so that it is ready for review before any examination takes place.
4. Since most of the countries of interest are PCT members, filing a PCT application will protect your rights in many of these nations for at least 30 months, and maybe even longer if you later submit your application for review nation.

Suppose you are thinking about how to protect your innovation worldwide. In that case, you should contact an experienced patent attorney because numerous factors influence a decision to file overseas.