January 2004 Revision of Patent Cooperation Treaty Application Procedure

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) is amending the rules of practice to conform them to certain amendments made to the Regulations under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) that will take effect on January 1, 2004. These amendments will result in the addition of a written opinion in PCT Chapter I, as well as a simplification of PCT designations and the PCT fee structure. In addition, the Office is adjusting the transmittal, search, and international preliminary examination fees for international applications filed under the PCT to be more closely aligned with the actual average costs of processing a PCT application and conducting a PCT search and international preliminary examination under the new process.