DISCOVER PRIOR ART IN NATIONAL PATENT PROCEDURE

The International-Type Search (ITS) is carried out by an International Searching Authority (ISA) concerning a national patent application which is filed with a national office, in order to find the most relevant prior art documents regarding the claimed subject matter in the application in accordance with the PCT.

The Objective of the ITS

The objective of the ITS is to discover prior art which is relevant for the purpose of determining whether, and if so, to what extent, the claimed invention to which the national patent application relates is or is not novel and does or does not involve an inventive step. Based on the above, the ISA establishes either an International-Type Search report (ITSR) or a declaration of non-establishment of ITSR.
No Written Opinion is established upon completing the ITSR.

The Process

ITS requests can be filed at a national patent office whose respective national patent law provides for the possibility to request International-Type Search. At the moment, filing of ITS requests are possible at the following National Offices of the VPI Contracting States based on their respective national patent laws:

Hungarian Intellectual Property Office,
Patent Office of the Republic of Poland, and
Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic.

The ITS request is to be filed directly at the National Office where the national patent application is in progress.
The ITS is carried out in accordance with the International Search and Preliminary Examination Guidelines under the PCT.

ITS request form

Please, refer to the relevant language request form of the national offices on the following pages:

Hungarian Intellectual Property Office >>
Patent Office of the Republic of Poland >>
Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic >>

Time Limits and Delivery

The Visegrad Patent Institute will establish an ITS within three months from the date on which both the request form and the fee arrived to the Visegrad Patent Institute.
If the application subject to an ITS covers more than one invention (and the national application is considered to lack unity), no reasoned statement on the lack of unity is included in the ITSR. Furthermore, no invitation to pay additional fees is issued, but applicant may have the possibility to pay these fees directly to the national office where the national patent application is in progress related to which the ITS was requested.

Fee

The fee for ITS shall be paid directly to the Visegrad Patent Institute. Applicable fee(s) are contained in the Schedule of Fees of the VPI.