The PCT minimum documentation is the set of documents that any Office or organization must have on hand in order to be appointed as an International Searching Authority (ISA) and that any ISA must consult when conducting an international search, as defined by PCT Rule 34. It includes both patent and non-patent literature (PCT Article 15 and 16).
The scope of documents belonging to the PCT minimum documentation is imprecise.
In terms of patent literature, PCT Rule 34 specifies which patent collections are included in the PCT minimum documentation, but it also indicated that elements of national collections that are not specifically named may be included in certain circumstances are met.
Patents issued by, and patent application published in, any not explicitly listed country after 1920 that are in the English, French, German, or Spanish language and do not claim priority can be included in the minimum documentation if the Office in charge of the national collection sorts out the documents and makes them available to each ISA (see Rule 34).
The last inventory of patent literature included in the PCT minimum documentation was taken in 2001, and it is unknown whether the stated collections are still available to all ISAs or whether more patent collections have been made available since then.
“Such other published items of non-patent literature as the International Searching Authorities shall agree upon and which shall be published in a list by the Legal Texts Bureau when agreed upon for the first time and whenever changed,” according to PCT Rule 34.1 (b)(iii). The PCT minimum documentation’s definition and scope of non-patent publications were last updated in February 2010.
As a result, an up-to-date list of patent literature that is included in the PCT minimum documentation is required today in order for ISAs to verify that their search collections are full. This would aid in improving the consistency and quality of international searched.
The PCT minimum documentation list was designed and specified for the paper era, and it needs to be revised to reflect today’s digital possibilities.
PCT Rule 34 was drafted when patents were only available in paper form; however, today, bibliographic information, full text, abstracts, pictures, claims, and classification information are all publicly available digitally. With the introduction of these new formats, new issues arise in terms of the formats in which prior art material is available, as well as the speed at which new prior art data can be made available. The PCT minimum documentation should grow in step with the digital prior art would, which would benefit both International Search Authorities and consumers.
For the revision and extension of the PCT minimum documentation, clear, and specific criteria are required.
As technology advances, the technical coverage of prior must be included in the PCT minimum documentation be extensive enough to ensure that international searches are of high quality. As a result, the list must be maintained and updated on a regular basis, however, there is no clear direction on how new patent collections and/or non-patent literature collections can be included in the PCT minimum documentation.