Patent Country

Patent Number, Patent Country and Designated States... 

Apart from the complete patent number patent countries are searchable in an extra field Patent Country (PC). EP and PCT patents require the additional searching of the field Designated States (DS). The field contains all the countries, where patent protection was sought for EP and PCTi2 patents. 

During a query in field APPS the fields for Patent Application and Priority are simultaneously explored. A restriction to PATS includes the fields Patent Number and Cited Patents. By entering PCS searches the fields Patent Country and Designated States are initiated (Sect. 7.4.7). 

Patent databases aie databases containing information gathered froin patent documents [46]. These describe both the technical aspects and the scope of a patent (patent protection) and arc specific to a country or a group of countries (Tabic 5-4). 

INPADOC international patent database covering more than 60 countries... 

A process variation of the extraction of 2-isopropylnaphthalene hydroperoxide from the cmde oxidation product with an alkylene glycol has been patented (71). The 2-naphthalenol plant of American Cyanamid, which was using the hydroperoxidation process and had a 14 x 10 t /yr capacity (72), ceased production in 1982, leaving the United States without a domestic producer of 2-naphthol. The 2-naphthol capacity in the Western world is approximately 50 x 10 t/yr, with ACNA, Italy and Hoechst AG, Germany operating the largest plants. China produces about 7 x 10 t/yr. Other important producing countries are Poland, Romania, the former Czechoslovakia, and India (35,52). 

Unlike the common practice occurring in other countries, in which award of patent rights is based on the date on which a patent apphcation is filed, in the United States the patent grant is based on the first date of invention. To be an inventor in the United States, an individual must contribute to conception of the invention, and may contribute to reduction of the invention to practice. Although the creation of an advance, development, or apphcation may be conceived by one given individual, it often is the case that the act of invention is the work of many individuals, especially in a commercial context. Accordingly, inventorship questions often arise. 

The importance of an accurate and complete record of invention caimot be underestimated. The record of invention should serve as the basic document for estabUshing the date of conception and reduction to practice of the invention. The U.S. PTO issues patents to those who are first to invent. In a contest over inventorship, any available record of invention is submitted to the U.S. PTO to estabUsh proof of an inventor s rights. As of January 1, 1996, any inventor from a country belonging to the World Trade Organization may use such evidence before the U.S. PTO. Previously, this type of proof could be rehed upon only if the activity, documented in the notebook, record, etc, was undertaken in the United States. Similarly, activity undertaken after December 8, 1993 in Mexico or Canada may also be rehed upon to prove inventorship. 

Has the Invention Been the Subject of a Prior Foreign Patent Although one cannot be sure when, or even whether, a patent wiU issue from any appHcation, it is good practice to make sure your U.S. patent appHcation is filed within 12 months of the first foreign filed appHcation. The patenting of an invention in another country by the inventor or another party wiU preclude the issuance of a patent on the same invention in the United States. 

For many years, the method of obtaining foreign patent protection corresponding to a U.S. patent appHcation was to file separate, individual patent apphcations in selected foreign countries. Each of the appHcations had to be written to conform with the national requirements of the country in which it was filed. 

The national laws of most countries are unique to the particular country. However, most industrialized countries are parties to one or more International Conventions which provide for the filing of foreign patent apphcations. For example, pursuant to the Paris Convention, if an appHcation is filed in a second country within one year after filing the appHcation in the first, "home" country, and if certain legal formalities are met, most foreign countries will treat the foreign-filed appHcation under its own laws as if it had been filed on precisely the same date as in the original, home country appHcation. 

If the appHcant decides to proceed, the PCT patent appHcation will pubHsh. At this time, the appHcant may either proceed to file the PCT patent appHcation in each designated national country or request examination of the PCT appHcation within the framework of the PCT. If the appHcant requests examination of the patent appHcation within the PCT, an Examiner will file a written action. The appHcant may then amend the appHcation by resubmitting new claims and new appHcation pages. 

Under the EPC an appHcant may file a patent appHcation in one or all of the European countries that are signatories by filing a single appHcation. Unlike the PCT, the EPC is actually a system of law, common to all of the present member countries, estabHshed for the granting of European patents. 

Even in countries which are not signatories to either the PCT or various regional conventions provided around the world, patent appHcation examination generally foUows a fairly standard pattern. After the first national, home appHcation is filed, subsequent apphcations may then be filed in other countries, within the 12-month time period if such a grace period is provided. If this grace period is not provided, the patent appHcation(s) which are to be filed in non-Paris Convention Countries have to be filed before any event occurs that may destroy the novelty of the invention. Eurther, under U.S. 

European Patent Office (EPO) single patent covering multiple countries tended to supplant national patent offices increased share of English-language pubHcations... 

Patent laws provide for several stages in the life of an application for a patent on an invention. The pattern followed by patent laws in effect in most industrialized countries during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and still in effect in the United States in 1995, calls for the examination of all patent appHcations to certify that the claimed invention meets the national standards for novelty, usehilness, and inventiveness. The owner of the technology to be patented files appHcation papers that include a specification containing a description of the invention to be patented (called the disclosure) and claims defining the limits of the invention to be protected by the patent, a formal request for the issuance of a patent, and fees. Drawings of devices and apparatuses, electrical circuits, flow charts, etc, are an important part of the disclosures of most nonchemical and many chemical patents. 

Under U.S. law, the inventor is defined as the owner of the patent unless the patent rights have been assigned to his or her employer, or some other individual or organization. Designations of assignment are typically filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. PTO) prior to the issuance of patents, and the name of the assignee is printed on the patent. In most countries outside of the United States, the patentee is the employer, rather than the employed inventor. 

Because each country has its own patent laws, the precise meaning of the bibhographic data and the legal significance of the pubUshed patent document vary from country to country. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides a recommended code to distinguish the various types of documents and to simplify storage and retrieval of patent data (2), but the code is implemented differentiy by different countries. For example, in the United States an A-document in 1995 was a patent in the Nethedands, an A-document was a pubUshed unexamined appHcation. It is essential to understand each country s system to interpret the status of its patent documents. 

In addition to utiHty patents, some countries pubHsh patent documents under different or less stringent standards for patentabiHty and with shorter patent terms. For example, plant patents cover asexually reproduced plants. Design patents cover the decorative aspects of a product. UtiHty models and petty patents cover products with differences from the prior art that need not meet the nonobviousness standards set for utiHty patents. 

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