Hungarian Intellectual Property Office

Glossary of Industrial Property Terms

PTC minimum documentation

The best way of obtaining patent protection by means of a single international application is facilitated under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. one of the advantages of PCT is that the applicant gains an international research report. The office that possesses the so-called minimum documentation on paper, microfilm or electronic carriers according the Regulations can prepare the search report. Offices being eligible to carry out a search are the followings: the industrial property office of Australia, Austria, China, Japan, the Russian Federation, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United States of America and the European Patent Office.

PCT minimum documentation includes the repeated publications and the followings with certain exceptions regarding the offices not speaking officially the Japanese, the Russian and the Spanish languages:

1.

(i) patents granted since 1920 by the former German Reichspatentamt, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Switzerland (only in German and French) and the Soviet Union;

(ii) patents granted in the Federal Republic of Germany;

(iii) patent applications published since 1920 in the countries mentioned in point (i) and (ii);

(iv) inventor's certificates permitted in the Soviet Union;

(v) certificates of utility granted in France and the application disclosed by such certificates of utility;

(vi) patents granted after 1920 in any country and the patent applications published after 1920 if written in English, French, German or Spanish and does not contain priority claim (under certain conditions);

2.

The published international applications (PCT), the published applications for regional patent and applications for granting regional inventor's certificate, as well as the published regional patents and regional inventor's certificates.

3.

The other published elements of the non-patent literature to which the international research organizations agree and which are published in a list by the International Bureau after the first agreements and subsequently each amendment to them.