Treaties, Laws and Practices

Patent-related Treaties administered by WIPO

General standards of protection to be provided by States

• The Paris Convention (The first major international agreement relating to the protection of industrial property rights, including patents, providing, in particular, national treatment, the right of priority and a number of common rules in the field of substantive law.)
• The Patent Law Treaty (A treaty providing common and, as a general rule, maximum requirements for many of the formality matters involved in the procedures before national/regional patent offices. (Further information on the Patent Law Treaty is available.))

 

Methods for obtaining protection

• The Patent Cooperation Treaty (A treaty establishing an international patent filing system.)
• The Budapest Treaty (A treaty prescribing deposits of microorganisms at any international depositary authority under the Treaty to be recognized for the purposes of patent procedure.)

 

International Patent Classification

• Strasbourg Agreement Concerning the International Patent Classification (A regularly updated international system for classifying inventions in patent applications in all fields of technology, allowing more efficient searching and retrieval of patent information.)

 

National/Regional Laws and Practices

• A number of national and regional patent laws can be found in the Collection of Laws for Electronic Access (CLEA) database.
• Guidelines and manuals of the national/regional patent offices.

 

WIPO Index of Patent Systems

• WIPO Index of Patent Systems (for statistical purposes).