prevent abuse which might result from the exclusive rights conferred by a patent. Even in such an exceptional case, a patent may not be forfeited until a compulsory licence has been granted and has failed for two years to remedy the abuse.
14.11.
Except for the provisions that each country must comply with, the Paris Convention leaves every country free to legislate as it wishes. It may exclude from patentability inventions belonging to certain fields of technology, decide whether patents should be granted with or without an examination as to novelty and other criteria of patentability, fix the duration of patents, and fix all the details of procedure and administration.
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The Patent Cooperation Treaty
14.12.
The Patent Co-operation Treaty (the PCT) was concluded in 1970. Any member state of the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property (i.e. the countries to which the Paris Convention applies) may become party to this treaty by signature followed by the deposit of an instrument of ratification or deposit of an instrument of accession. Instruments of ratification or accession are deposited with the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Forty-nine states, including the United Kingdom are party to this Treaty as at April 1991. The UK ratified the treaty on 24 January 1978 and the treaty came into operation on 1 June 1978. China has not yet joined the PCT, but has indicated its intention to do so in 1994.
14.13.
Any country may declare in its instrument of ratification or accession, or may inform the Director General of WIPO by written notice any time thereafter that the Convention shall apply to all or some of those territories for the external relations of which it is responsible. The UK notified the Director General that the Patent Co-operation Treaty applied to Hong Kong as from 15 April 1981.
14.14.
Applications for the protection of inventions in any of the contracting states may be filed as international applications under the treaty. An international application shall contain, as specified in the treaty and the regulations, a request, a description, one or more claims, one or more drawings (where required), and an abstract. An international application may contain a declaration claiming the priority of one or more earlier applications filed in or for any country party to the Paris Convention. The applicant has to designate at least one contracting state in which protection is sought. The effect of any international patent application in each designated state is the same as if a national patent application had been filed with the national patent office of that state.
14.15.
Any resident or national of a contracting state may file an international application with the receiving office which is the patent office nominated for that purpose by the state of which the applicant is a resident or a national.
14.16.
Each international application is the subject of international search the object of which is to discover relevant prior art. International search is carried out by an international searching authority whose tasks include the preparation and issue of documentary search reports on prior art with respect to inventions which are the subject of
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