On October 6 2016, the Turkish Patent Institute (TPI) has been appointed as an International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) during the 56th series of Meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO.
The process was started with the application of TPI filed in March 2016 before the WIPO and first the advice of the PCT Committee for Technical Cooperation was sought. During the 29th session of the Committee which took place between May 17 and 20 2016, the Committee unanimously agreed to recommend to the Assembly of the PCT Union that the TPI be appointed as an ISA and IPEA. Finally during the Assembly meeting, the TPI’s appointment was unanimously agreed.
The minimum requirements to fulfil for appointment as ISA and IPEA are: (1) having at least 100 full-time employees with sufficient technical qualifications to carry out searches; (2) owning or having access at least the minimum documentation, properly arranged for search purposes; and (3) having a quality management system and internal review arrangements.
The TPI has been preparing examination reports for some IPC classes of patent applications since 2005. For other IPC classes, the TPI had cooperation agreements with EPO, Russian Patent Office, Swedish Patent Office and the examination reports of the patent application has been prepared by these offices. It was the strategic plan of the TPI to fulfil the capacity for preparing search and examination reports for all IPC classes of patent applications.
Having fulfilled all the minimum requirements, the TPI has also been appointed as ISA and IPEA, together with 19 national offices. By the end of 2016, the TPI will also stop outsourcing any further work to other offices.
First published by Managing IP – International Briefings in Nov 24, 2016.
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