Introduction to Digital Access Service for Priority Documents (DAS)
As of March 1, 2012, the State Intellectual Property Office of the PRC (SIPO) has started operating as a depositing office and an accessing office under the Digital Access Service for Priority Documents (DAS) of the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) in order to facilitate formalities related to priority documents and submission of priority documents, to reduce the burden of applicants and to enhance patent examination efficiency.
This article provides a brief introduction to the DAS, which may be helpful for knowing how to make use of the DAS.
I. Introduction to DAS
Established and administered by WIPO’s International Bureau, the DAS offers an electronic exchange service providing digital network access for priority documents among participating patent offices.
Where an application in question is filed for the first time with a patent office participating in this service (e.g., the Japan Patent Office) and is then filed with the SIPO and claims a foreign priority, the applicant may request the SIPO to access the priority documents from a special digital library via the DAS. The priority documents acquired in this manner shall be deemed to be certified copy of patent application documents furnished by the applicant in accordance with Article 30 of the Chinese Patent Law.
The applicants may voluntarily opt for this digital service to provide certified copy of priority documents or choose to furnish the certified one in the conventional manner.
II. Brief introduction to operations for submitting priority documents by means of the DAS
1. The applicant files a request with the patent office of first filing (e.g., the Japan Patent Office) to deposit the priority documents in the digital library;
2. The applicant then authorizes a patent Office of second filing to retrieve the priority documents via the service by selecting a setting on the WIPO website, i.e., selects “CN” in the Access Control List;
3. For applications through our firm, if the certified copy of the priority documents are to be submitted by means of the DAS, firstly please make sure that these documents have been deposited and the SIPO has been in the access control list. In addition, the following information is required to be provided:
(1) Patent Office accepting the priority application
(2) Application number of the priority application
(3) Filing date of the priority application
(4) Applicant of the priority application
(5) Inventor(s) of the priority application
4. Our firm will file an access request when filing a new application, or file the request within three months from the filing date of the application in question.
III. Notice
1. A patent application, for which a request for the DAS is filed with the SIPO, should be a patent application for invention or utility model claiming a foreign priority (e.g., Japanese priority). (The DAS is unavailable for patent applications for designs so far).
2. The patent Office accepting the priority application should be an Office participating in the DAS (till now, there are ten participating countries: AU, ES, FI, GB, US, IB, JP, KR, CN, SE and DK, among which SE and DK are only the depositing offices) and the priority application shall not be a PCT application.
3. The applicant should prepare and deposit the certified copy of the priority documents and authorize “CN” in advance so that our firm can request the SIPO to conduct the retrieval. Otherwise, the retrieval may be unsuccessful.
4. Where the applicant of the priority application is inconsistent with the applicant of the subsequent application filed in China (the applicant of the subsequent application is not all or one of the applicants of the priority application), the applicant should submit a document certifying the assignment of the right of priority in accordance with the provision of the Chinese patent laws.
5. Due date for submitting the priority documents by means of DAS is the same as that for submitting priority documents in paper form, i.e., within 3 months from the filing date.
6. If necessary, the applicant may need to provide a
Certificate of Availability of a Certified Patent Document in a Digital Library, which can be downloaded from the WIPO website.
IV. Related information
Related introductions for the DAS (Chinese version) are available on the SIPO website.
http://www.sipo.gov.cn/pdoc/das/.
