The purpose of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is to provide a standardized filing format and procedure that allows an applicant to seek protection for an invention in several countries by filing one international application in one location, in one language, and paying one initial set of fees. The information in this collection is used by the public to submit a patent application under the PCT and by the USPTO to fulfill its obligation to process, search, and examine the application as directed by the treaty.
Program changes to annual responses and burden hours are due to the removal of two information requirements, extensions of time and priority documents, because the information is no longer being collected. All other changes to annual responses and burden hours are administrative adjustments from revised estimates.
Program changes to annual cost burden are primarily due to the removal of several fees from this collection that have been moved into collection 0651-0072, which was approved by OMB in January 2013 in conjunction with the USPTO rulemaking Setting and Adjusting Patent Fees (RIN 0651-AC54). The corresponding fees are now being deleted from 0651-0021 to avoid double-counting those annual (non-hour) costs in the USPTO's inventory. The USPTO has also removed recordkeeping costs associated with retaining acknowledgment receipts from online submissions because keeping these items is a suggestion and not a requirement and has removed the postage costs associated with the two deleted information requirements, extensions of time and priority documents. Other changes to annual costs are due to administrative adjustments from revised estimates of costs associated with translations, drawings, and postage.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Request and Fee Calculation Sheet