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Filing Strategy Normally a PCT application will not be an originating application. Normally it is less costly, more convenient, and more suited to an applicant’s needs to file first a Canadian patent application or a U.S. provisional or regular application, and then to follow that initial filing with a PCT application. If the PCT application is filed within 12 months of the initial filing, then pursuant to an international treaty referred to as the Paris Convention, the PCT application will obtain the benefit of the filing date of the original U.S. or Canadian application. The expense of preparing and filing any patent application is highly variable and comprises three principal task categories as follows: (i) searching for prior technology (prior art) and evaluating the invention relative to the prior art; (ii) preparing the specification, claims, abstract and drawings; and (iii) preparing the formal filing documents, arranging their execution, attending to filing the application, and paying the official fees and other disbursements. Note that once tasks (i) and (ii) have been completed for a first patent application filing in one country, these tasks normally do not have to be repeated (or else can be repeated at comparatively lower expense) for subsequent counterpart patent applications filed in other countries, if the character and perception of the invention have not changed when the time comes to file the subsequent patent applications. Where, however, between the time of the first filing and the time of a subsequent filing, the invention has evolved, and has been improved, refined, or superseded, or variants of the invention identified, then the first two task categories mentioned above may have to be redone before the subsequent patent application filings are effected. This two-stage approach to protection of an invention is frequently suitable where the inventive idea is not static but is the subject of ongoing research, development, modification or refinement. Filing an earlier somewhat skeletal patent application preserves a Paris Convention priority date for the underlying inventive concept, while the second-stage patent application can embellish the originally filed specification, refine the claims, and capture modifications and improvements made to the invention subsequent to the first-filed patent application.
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General Information Option Where An Applicant is not a National or Resident of Canada |
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| Nothing
here written constitutes legal advice. The accuracy of what is written
is not guaranteed. |
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