Priority Document Access Service is a voluntary service established and administered by the International Bureau of WIPO. It enables a patent applicant claiming priority from an earlier application to rely on a copy of the priority document held in, or accessible via, the service, rather than having to provide a certified copy separately to each patent office with which a patent application claiming priority is filed. The participating offices will also benefit from not having to provide as many copies of the same application.

Legal frame work

Priority Document Access Service has been established in accordance with Framework Provision for Digital Access Service for Priority Documents, established by the International Bureau in accordance with a decision of the Paris Union Assembly, the PLT Assembly and the PCT Union Assembly and the recommendations of the Working Group on the Digital Access Service for Priority Documents.

The Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV) is a participating office from November 2011. PRV will be able to upload priority documents to PDAS but not to receive documents from PDAS.

Participation in PDAS

Participation in the service is voluntary for patent offices and for applicants.
Participating patent offices

How the system operates

To participate in PDAS the applicant must file a separate request. PRV will create a priority document and electronically transfer it to WIPO via a secure data exchange. The document will be held by WIPO in a secure database. WIPO will acknowledge receipt of the document by supplying the applicant with a unique access code. This allows the applicant to authorize, via a web portal, participating patent offices to have access to the priority document(s) deposited. The access code will only be sent to one of the applicants/agents, if there are several.

A user guide is available on the WIPO website. The guide describes how to use the access code and the web portal.

Applications

A request to generate a priority document can be filed for a national Swedish application and for a PCT-application, when PRV is receiving office (RO).

Fees

The fee applicable for issuing the certificate is in accordance with PRV’s price list.