Patent Law Treaty

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

The adoption of the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 1970 simplified the filling of patent applications by harmonizing certain procedural requirements at the international level; however, many countries continued to differ in the patentability requirements they imposed in their national laws.^[3] Thus, it became clear that there was also a need to harmonize the substantive requirements across the various jurisdictions in order to further improve and standardize the international patent system.

Negotiations to achieve such harmonization began in the mid-1980s. One of the first attempts was a draft of an instrument called the Patent Harmonization Treaty, which was discussed in a diplomatic conference held in The Hague in 1991.^[3] However, the negotiations were abandoned in 1993 due to the opposition of the United States to accepting the “first-to-file” principle, and also because in a parallel way the TRIPS Agreement had been negotiated, which included many similar provisions to those taken in the draft of the Patent Harmonization Treaty.^[3]

Two years later, during the meetings of the WIPO General Assembly and the Paris Union Assembly held between September 25 and October 3, 1995, it was agreed to convene a committee of experts to discuss a new draft of patent law treaty prepated by WIPO.^[4] Such committee held its first session in Geneva from December 11 to 15, 1995 with the representation of 67 states members of WIPO or the Paris Union, and representatives of European Communities, the European Patent Office, the Organization of African Unity and the World Trade Organization as observers.^[4]

The treaty negotiations lasted another four years until, in September 1999, during the Thirty-Fourth Series of Meetings of the WIPO Assembly of Member States, a resolution was adopted to convene a diplomatic conference for the adoption of the Patent Law Treaty (PLT).^[5]

The Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of the PLT was held in Geneva, Switzerland from May 11 to June 2, 2000. The Patent Law Treaty was adopted on June 1, 2000 and opened for signature on June 2, 2000. That day, 47 countries signed.^[6]

Adoption process per country

France

Prior to the entry into force of the treaty in France, a bill was submitted on 14 January 2009 at the French Senate proposing the ratification of the PLT by France.^[7][8] In March 2009, a report from French Senator Rachel Mazuir recommended the ratification of the PLT, as soon as possible, by France.^[9][10] On 24 July 2009, the government was authorized to ratify the PLT.^[11] The PLT then entered into force for France on 5 January 2010.^[2]

United States

The Treaty was transmitted from the President to the Senate in 2006. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued its Executive Report 110-6 in November 2007. Non-self-executing portions of the PLT were implemented as statute by the Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act of 2012, Pub. Law 112-211 (Dec. 12, 2012). The PLT was ratified by the United States on 18 September 2013, and the ratification instrument was forwarded to WIPO. The Patent Office's implementing regulations were proposed at 78 Fed. Reg. 21788 (Apr. 11, 2013) and issued as a Final Rule at 78 Fed. Reg. 62367 (Oct. 21, 2013).

Mexico

Article 20(7)(3) of the proposed new NAFTA, in December 2019, stated that "Each Party shall give due consideration to ratifying or acceding to the PLT, or, in the alternative, shall adopt or maintain procedural standards consistent with the objective of the PLT".^[12]

• Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property
• Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
• Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT)
• Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (GRATK)
• European Convention relating to the Formalities required for Patent Applications (1953)
• Trademark Law Treaty (1994)
• Design Law Treaty
• Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks