The leaders of the IP5, the five largest patent offices in the world, continue to endorse and provide enthusiastic support for the Global Dossier Initiative, a virtual environment to give all stakeholders secure, one-stop access and management to dossier and examination information for the applications in a related family of global applications. Global Dossier is a forward-looking way to advance the international patent system, providing stakeholders tremendous cost savings through new efficiencies. Moreover, Global Dossier leverages worksharing opportunities not only through information exchange, but also enables examiner collaboration-activities contributing to improved patent quality worldwide.
The advantages envisioned from Global Dossier include: facilitation of preplanned cross-filings; one-portal management of cross-filed applications; elimination of the need to file duplicate documents in multiple offices (e.g., priority documents, prior art citations, etc.); and, other functions allowing for greater stakeholder involvement in application management.
While many of the individual features of the Global Dossier are not new, Global Dossier provides cohesion to existing initiatives, delivering a unified outcome with clear benefits to all stakeholders in the patent system. It gives the IP5 Offices and WIPO a new opportunity to consolidate, conclude, or re-mission current IT initiatives, and will reduce IT development costs and provide usable results for stakeholders quickly. Global Dossier will continue to evolve and will provide benefits such as facilitation of electronic filing for PCT International Applications under the ePCT framework, improved access to dossier and examination information, and integration with the IP5 One Portal Dossier and WIPO CASE projects.