When a U.S. national stage patent application or direct filing claims priority to a foreign application, a certified copy of the foreign priority document is required. The USPTO and certain foreign patent offices – European Patent Office (EPO), Japan Patent Office (JPO), Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), China Patent Office (SIPO which stands for State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – are members of the Electronic Priority Document Exchange Program (PDX).
PDX stands for electronic Priority Document Exchange, a multi-country exchange system that provides for the electronic transmission of priority patent documents to and from participating foreign intellectual property offices. A priority filing in a PDX country affords greater convenience as the applicant of the U.S. filing need not obtain and file a certified copy of the foreign priority application.
Under the PDX program, a request in the U.S. application is normally not required because the USPTO will automatically request the priority document based on the Application Data Sheet (ADS).
Under the PDX Program, effective October 8, 2014, the USPTO electronically transmits certain U.S. priority applications as-filed to PDX members and retrieves or accesses certain foreign priority applications as-filed from the member patent offices. As of April 15, 2011, the PDX program has been extended to the International Bureau (IB), Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (ES), United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (GB), Australian Patent Office (AU), National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland, Denmark Patent and Trademark Office (DK) and Swedish Patent and Trademark Office (SE).
