Notarization and certification in the electronic patent application process

About 90% of more than 200 countries in the world have fully implemented electronic patent applications. For example, in China, around 2010, we relied on the CPC client to realize electronic patent applications. Back then, there were people in the bureau who kept an eye on the electronic application rate. If you handed in too much paper, someone would call to remind you. Be sure to convert paper applications to electronic applications. Electronic patent applications naturally have considerable advantages in the preparation of documents. They only need to provide electronic scans of relevant materials to the intellectual property authorities, and they can be recognized as having submitted the original documents, which brings convenience to the agency. There is no doubt about it.

Across the world, electronic filing using this method has become the mainstream for patent applications in most countries. However, some countries still retain the paper submission method, and relevant additional materials such as the power of attorney and the translated version of the priority in the national language still need to be notarized and certified before they can be recognized by the intellectual property authority.

Countries that still require paper submission and notarization, such as Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Venezuela, etc., are basically what we consider to be so-called "developing countries". Still retaining the method of notarization and certification, it can be simply considered that developed countries have relatively complete credit systems. Applicants and their agencies only need to be responsible for the authenticity of the documents and materials they provide. Once the fact is found to be fraudulent, regardless of the fact, Both the applicant and the agency need to bear serious responsibility for this. For example, it happened many years ago that a large enterprise replaced the cost reduction materials for thousands of patent applications with one cost reduction material, and the agency's agency qualifications were almost lost. But this is not the case in countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan. A power of attorney signed by the applicant is required. In addition to the official seal of the applicant and the identity certification materials of the inventor, the translator who translates the priority text also needs to provide corresponding qualifications to prove that you Being able to translate and sign is not enough. All these materials need to be notarized and certified. We can think that the prerequisite for all these materials still need to be notarized and certified is that you need to prove your innocence.

Just like proving that the parents on the household registration book are the parents, it will be more troublesome to prove one's innocence on one's own. First of all, in addition to stamping the official seal on the documents with the official seal and signing in person where the name needs to be signed, these signed documents need to be notarized by a notary office to prove that the signatures and seals on the documents are authentic. The translation document needs to prove that the translation is consistent with the original.

After notarization is completed at the notary office, the materials will be sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will have dedicated personnel to regularly send the documents that need to be authenticated to major foreign consulates in China as needed. The consulates will have specialized departments to authenticate the documents.

document

Taking Pakistan as an example, the notarization and certification materials required for its invention patent application include:

English translation of application documents;

Copy of priority document;

English translation and affidavit of copy of priority document;

power of attorney;

Inventor's Statement;

In addition, you also need to prepare a series of documents proving the company's qualifications and personal identity, such as:

Application form for international commercial certificate;

Business license;

Scanned copies of the front and back of the inventor’s ID card and original signature;

time

Notarization and certification will take a long time, which may last 2-3 weeks. If the applicant does not want to incur the cost of supplementing documents, it will take at least 3-4 weeks to complete the notarization and certification in advance.

cost

The certification fee standards of various embassies and consulates are different, and the cost may vary exponentially. For example, the certification fee in Bangladesh is almost twice that of Pakistan, and that of Saudi Arabia is twice that of Bangladesh.