WIPO has launched a new web page called PCT Success Stories (click here). The idea is that you might have invented something and filed a PCT application on the invention, and the PCT application might later have helped the invention be a success. You could let the folks at WIPO know about it, and they could share the success story. There is for example a place on the web page where you can click and upload a photograph of your invention.
I should think about this. My first reaction when I saw this initiative was that many of the PCT applications that I have filed over the years on behalf of clients of my firm are surely of such dry subject matter that they surely would not be natural candidates for this Success Stories initiative. My second reaction was that many of the inventions that have been the subject of PCT applications that I have filed have not been, shall I say, particularly photogenic. Let’s come out and say it — I have written quite a few PCT applications over the years that are as dry as toast and most people would say that there is nothing about them that is particularly interesting to look at. But I digress.
I thought about this a bit more, and I realized that “success” can probably mean many different things. I think of one client of our firm, a high-tech startup, that used the PCT system over and over again, linked with the Patent Prosecution Highway, to get quite a few quickly granted US patents. Each of those inventions was found patentable both by an International Searching Authority that was not the USPTO, and by the USPTO, and became a US patent much sooner than one might have expected if only the US filing path had been used without the PCT filing path. And each of those US patents, should it ever get litigated, would have an enhanced presumption of validity that comes from not one but two patent offices having searched the prior art and having examined the claims and having found the invention to be patentable. The client that I am thinking of managed to build a formidable portfolio of US patents in its niche technology area a lot faster than one might have expected if the PCT system had not been used. The patent portfolio contributed to some recent very favorable business events for the company. I will see if this client is interested in submitting a success story to the new WIPO web page. My inquiry might not go very far, simply because the personality qualities of most of the people at the company are mostly in the direction of quietly plugging away at their work and not showing off. But we shall see.
Do you know somebody who has a PCT success story that people might like to hear about? If so, let them know about this new initiative on the WIPO web site.