Choose where to file a PCT national phase patent

At 30/31 months, PCT patent applicants need to decide in which countries to file national phase patents. To help you make an informed choice, S&Z created Patent Country Selection Direct.

This is how to choose the right countries in which to file:

Step 1 – Enter published PCT number

Enter the WO number and click Next. The system extracts your patent data from the EPO, including:

• the class – telling the system the field of technology your patent relates to. This is critical, as much of the analysis is based on your technology sector.
• the number of claims and pages – this is important, as it materially affects national phase patent filing costs in some countries.

Step 2 – select your weightings

Weightings are used to rank countries. Adjust these to suite your priorities. Cost-conscious applicants may wish to increase the Affordability weighting. If you are unsure, keep the default weightings – they are well-considered.

Weightings include:

• Filing activity – where patents in your techology field are filed
• Foreign PCT demand – where PCT patent applicants tend to file
• Affordability – the lifetime cost of patents
• Market size – countries’ GDP
• Population – countries’ population
• Specialisation – how important your technology field is a country
• Sector strength – the relative size of your technology field‘s market in each country.

The data is tailored for your specific technology field.

Step 3 – Select countries

Select countries from the patent ranking table, which scores 134 PCT member States using your weightings.

The table includes the estimated cost to grant and the estimated lifetime renewal cost. It also details the PCT national phase filing deadline.

About half the countries are 30 month countries, the other half are 31 month. However, some countries permit extensions. For example, South Africa permits national phase patents to be filed up to 34 months.

Expand the cost section to see the breakdown of estimated filing, search, examination, office action response and grant fees.

Step 4 – See patent country analysis graphs

The easiest way to understand the benefits of each country is through graphs:

See how your weightings affected each country’s score and see the countries’ relative filing-grant and lifetime renewal costs.

The value map is particularly helpful. If you are looking for the highest-value (i.e. low-cost v high-ranking score), select countries in the top left quadrant.

The technology sector’s growth graph highlights countries where your technology is gaining the most traction, and the cost-timeline shows how expenses are expected to be incurred during the life of the national phase patents.

The cost-coverage graph shows the “plateau” (i.e. where adding more countries yields little added benefit), and the cost breakdown graph highlights countries with high attorney costs / official fees.

Step 5 – Download report & Select law firms

Download a comprehensive pdf version of the report:

Then, select a law firm for each country in which you wish to file a national phase patent. Send the law firm an email to request a firm quote. The system puts you directly in touch with the law firm. This is a “free” referral – you engage and instruct the law firm directly; neither you nor the law firm pays any commission or fee to S&Z.

If you are a law firm, you can customise the report to:

• replace S&Z branding with your own firm’s name and branding;
• customise weightings;
• add a surcharge for each country (filing, search, examination, office action response, grant);
• exclude specific countries;
• limit the countries shown; and
• select sections and graphs to display.

These settings can be saved to enable you easily to generate future customised reports for clients.

National phase country highlights

If you are interested in specific countries, select the country:

and see its primary exports and sectoral spending: