To begin with, the simple answer to this question is no. You cannot get a worldwide patent.
Let’s explain things in more detail. Patent rights are always jurisdictional rights, which means that they vary from territory to territory.
For example, if you want a patent in India, you require a registration in India. And, if you want a patent in the USA, you require a registration in USA.
In other words, you have to register the patent in every jurisdiction you want the protection in.
This means a global patent application is not possible. You will have to file the patent application in every country, and each of them will have their own process and their own cost.
Since the patent application process can be time-consuming, complicated, and costly, it is not practical to do.
However, we do have something that helps people who want to patent the same technology in multiple countries. This is a separate process called the PCT application process.
Using the PCT Application process, a single application can be used and can be filed in multiple countries.
PCT is a patent cooperation treaty with more than 150 countries as signatories. However, you will not be filing your application in all these 150+ countries.
Instead, you will need to select the specific countries in which your invention has to be protected. This number of countries can be anything from one to all 157, depending on where all you want your invention to be patented.
This is about international filing procedure. However, to get the actual patent grants in each country, the local laws of each country needs to be followed.
To conclude, there is no such thing as a single global patent application; what we have is a procedure to use a single application to file for a patent in multiple countries.
Contact Us at info@thepalaw.com if you want to know more about protecting your IP in different countries!
