Regulations under the PCT
Rule 34
Minimum Documentation
(a) The definitions contained in Article 2(i) and (ii) shall not apply for the purposes of this Rule. For the purposes of this Rule, “patent documents” shall include:
(i) published international applications,
(ii) published regional patents,
(iii) published national patents issued by a national Office or its legal predecessor in and after 1920,
(iv) utility certificates issued by France in and after 1920,
(v) inventors’ certificates issued by the former Soviet Union, and
(vi) applications for any of the forms of protection referred to in items (ii) to (v) above, published in and after 1920.
(b) Notwithstanding paragraph (c), the documentation referred to in Article 15(4) (“minimum documentation”) shall consist of:
(i) the “patent documents” as specified in paragraph (a), that have been made available by or on behalf of the relevant national Office or its legal successor or, as the case may be, by the International Bureau in accordance with the technical and accessibility requirements specified in the Administrative Instructions and, where applicable, with the provisions of Rule 36.1(ii), and
(ii) such other published items of non-patent literature as the International Searching Authorities shall agree upon and which shall be published in a list by the International Bureau when agreed upon for the first time and whenever changed.
(c) In addition to consulting the required documentation set forth in paragraph (b), the International Searching Authority should also preferably consult utility model documents consisting of the utility models issued, and the utility model applications published, in and after 1920 by a national Office or its legal predecessor, provided that the said utility model documents have been made available by or on behalf of the relevant national Office or its legal successor in accordance with the technical and accessibility requirements specified in the Administrative Instructions.
(d) Each national Office making its patent documents and, where applicable, its utility model documents available in accordance with the requirements specified in the Administrative Instructions shall:
(i) notify the International Bureau accordingly,
(ii) make newly published patent documents and, where applicable, utility model documents available regularly, and
(iii) provide to the International Bureau at least annually an authority file, detailing the current extent of the available patent documents and, where applicable, utility model documents in accordance with the Administrative Instructions.
(e) The International Bureau shall validate the availability of the patent and utility model documents notified in accordance with paragraph (d) and publish in the Gazette details of the documents concerned and the date from which they will become a part of the minimum documentation. The International Bureau shall administer a repository containing the authority files referred to in paragraph (d)(iii) as specified in the Administrative Instructions.
(f) Where an application is published more than once, each International Searching Authority shall be obliged to keep in its documentation only the first published version if none of the subsequently published versions contains additional matter.
(g) For the purposes of this Rule, applications and patents which have only been laid open for public inspection are not considered published applications and patents.