Patent Cooperation Treaty (B.I.R.P.I. Plan)

Resolution of the Executive Committee, Cannes, France, 26-29 September 1967

“Patent Cooperation Treaty (B.I.R.P.I. Plan)”

FICPI, the International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys, broadly representative of the free profession throughout the world, assembled at its Executive Committee and World Congress held in Cannes, France, 26-29 September 1967, passed the following Resolution:

• HAVING studied at the text of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (B.I.R.P.I. Plan) drafted by B.I.R.P.I.;
• CONSIDERS it highly desirable to avoid multiplication of the search work for patent applications for the same invention in different countries having novelty search;
• SUPPORTS the resolutions of the Executive Committee of A.I.P.P.I. in Helsinki on September 1, 1967 and of the European Patent Agents Study Group in Cannes on September 23, 1967;
• CONSIDERS the solution proposed in the B.I.R.P.I. Plan to be so ambitious and complicated that it would hardly be operable in practice; 
• CONSIDERS that in order to find out in what examination countries patent applications for the same invention have been filed, it is not necessary to create a supranational Filing Office, which as a consequence would add to the present complications, since to obtain the same result simpler solutions are possible;
• CONSIDERS that decentralization of the novelty search in various locations - e.g. I.I.B. in The Hague and the Patent Offices of U.S.A., U.R.S.S., Japan and Germany, would certainly not lead to substantially similar search results; 
• WOULD WELCOME AND SUPPORT the appointment of an international Committee comprising government officials, patent agents, industry representatives and experts in automatic documentation for further study of search systems.

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