PCT means Patent Cooperation Treaty. A patent application filed under this treaty is required to be filed in most of the countries who are party to such treaty. The time line to enter into National phase is different in different countries. In most of the countries the due date to enter into national phase is 30 months from the priority date. The priority date is either the International filing date or the date when the application is filed in any of the convention country whichever is earlier. However in India the time period for a PCT application to enter into National Phase is 31 months. It is to be noted that a national phase application should contain all the requisites namely complete or provisional specification, title of the invention, field of invention, description of drawings, claims, an abstract etc. A patent application under National phase has to be drafted properly so that it can be preceded smoothly. The statutory fees of filing a patent application is determined on the basis of number of priorities, number of pages and number of claims. If nothing is there in the patent application than the basic charges for filing an application is four thousand rupees. Thus it is extremely essential that a patent application should be drafted from a technical expert who is well versed with the field of invention and as per the requirements of the Patent Act of 1970.
