Translating Innovation: Translation under the Patent Cooperation Treaty

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations which serves as the global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation. WIPO is responsible for the administration of 26 international treaties including the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which establishes the framework of the international patent system. At present, nearly 200,000 international applications are filed under the PCT each year, 22.5% of which originate in Japan. This growth in filings has precipitated an increase in the demand for the high-quality translation of not only the applications, but also some of the documents associated with the filing process.

This workshop is intended to introduce participants to international patent system, and will examine the system established by the PCT, introduce the various documents generated during the application process, and explain the PCT Translation Service and the types of text translated at WIPO. Subsequently, examples from patentability reports will be used to explore the legal conditions relevant to patentability and the different aspects of an application that are examined, with the aim of giving participants a better understanding of what the examination entails and what significance this has for the translation of patent applications and associated documents.