Designated office

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The term designated office comes from patent law, specifically from the cooperation agreement (ZV or PCT - Patent Cooperation Treaty) and denotes a national or regional patent office for which an applicant can handle an international patent application according to Chapter 1 of the cooperation agreement as a national or regional one Has applied for a patent application.

There are usually several designated offices for a patent application. One of the designated offices can carry out the international search (Art. 12 ff. ZV) according to the relevant state of the art. The patent application is then published together with the search report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).