INTERNATIONAL TREATIES
PCT
New agreement between the EPO and WIPO under the PCT
On 1 October 1997, in Geneva, the European Patent Organisation and the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization signed a new agreement on the tasks of the European Patent Office as an international searching and preliminary examining authority under the PCT.
The agreement entered into force on 1 January 1998 and is valid for 10 years. It supersedes the agreement of 7 October 19871. Also renewed were corresponding agreements with the Australian, Austrian, Chinese and Japanese Patent Offices, the Russian Agency for Patents and Trademarks, the Swedish Patent and Registration Office, and the Spanish and US Patent and Trademark Offices.
The new agreement is basically the same as the old one. The only significant change is deletion of Article 3(3)(a)(ii) which allowed the EPO in case of excessive workload to limit its international search or preliminary examination work to a given number of international applications.
The text of the new agreement is reproduced below.