PCT Newsletter
November 2025 | No. 11/2025
Practical Advice
The communication of the international application to the designated (and elected) offices for entry into the national phase
Q. For each international application, I receive a notice--Form PCT/IB/308--informing the applicant of the communication of the international application to the designated Offices. I am aware that I do not need to act on it but I would like to understand why I receive it.
A: Form IB/308 informs the applicant that the International Bureau (IB) has transmitted a copy of the application to the designated Offices. The applicant usually receives two copies but the relevant one is the “second and supplementary notice” of Form PCT/IB/308 which you receive promptly after 28 months from the priority date (the first one is sent earlier, promptly after 19 months, and concerns only Luxembourg and the United Republic of Tanzania*).
To enter the national phase, PCT Article 22(1) states that the applicant must, in addition to furnishing a translation and paying the national fee, furnish a copy of the international application “unless the communication provided for in Article 20 has already taken place”.
PCT Article 20(1)(a) provides that the IB must communicate the international application as published to each designated Office, as provided in the Regulations, unless the designated Office waives such requirement. In the earlier days of the PCT System, an increasing number of designated States waived the requirement to receive a copy of each application in which they were designated.
In 2004, with the introduction of the designation of all Contracting States by default in international applications, and in view of the increasing number of Contracting States, PCT Rule 93bis came into effect, providing that, from the date of international publication, the designated Office would receive a copy of the application or other document on file at the IB only on specific request of the Office concerned and at the time specified by that Office. Such request may be made in relation to individually specified documents or a specified class or classes of documents (PCT Rule 93bis.1(a)).
PCT Rule 93bis.1(b) further provides that the IB and DO/EO may agree that the communication is considered to be made at the time when the IB makes the document available to the Office in electronic form in a digital library, in accordance with the Administrative Instructions, from which the Office may retrieve that document. In practice, designated Offices retrieve the copy of the application and any relevant document in various electronic ways, that is, in ePCT for Offices or other electronic document exchange systems, from the time the applicant enters the national phase before the Office concerned.
On the above-mentioned Form PCT/IB/308, two categories of designated Offices are indicated:
Item 2 of the Form is for Offices which have requested the communication under PCT Article 20 and PCT Rule 93bis.1. Currently, that is the European Patent Office for each application. The Office will accept the Form as conclusive evidence that the IB has communicated the application on the date of mailing of the Form, which is, the date when the IB has made the application available in the relevant electronic system. The applicant need not furnish a copy to the Office (PCT Rule 47.1(c-bis)(i) and PCT Rule 93bis).
Most designated Offices are listed under item 3. They have not, at 28 months from the priority date, requested the IB to communicate the application and are considered, under PCT Rule 47.1(e), to have notified the IB that they do not require a copy from the applicant for national phase entry (PCT Rule 47.1(c-bis)(ii)).
The distinction explained above is legally required, but for the applicant it is usually not of practical relevance. Applicants can rest assured that they do not need to submit a copy of the application to the DO when the application has been published.
Where the applicant enters the national phase early (before international publication), the IB communicates the application promptly on request of the applicant or the DO (PCT Article 23(2) and PCT Rule 47.4).
*These two countries still apply a 20-month time limit to enter the national phase unless a demand for international preliminary examination has been filed within 19 months from the priority date. Note that these two countries are members of regional patent systems for which the regional phase can be entered at 31 months from the priority date.
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