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On June 9, 2010, the UK Court of Appeal successfully avoided ruling on a 2009 decision by the England and Wales High Court (Patent Court) confirming the decision of the Board of Appeals of the EPO in case No. T 0788/05[1] which held that priority can only be claimed by the identical applicant(s) of the relevant earlier application or his valid successor in title[2].

Well, it is not a patent – there is no such thing as a “granted international patent.”  In reality, “PCT” has two meanings. To begin with, it is the official acronym for Patent Cooperation Treaty, which is a binding agreement between numerous countries to cooperate in the action of protecting inventions. However, PCT is also patentspeak for the application that gets filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty as well as its processes.

Say what? I can imagine the confusion generated by that sentence from here.  🙂

The name “Bypass Application” came about by how a US/PCT application is filed – i.e., when a bypass application is filed, the National Stage of a PCT application is bypassed.   Simply put, instead of filing a regular US national phase application, a new US application that is a continuation or continuation-in-part of the previously-filed & currently pending PCT application (with at least one common inventor) is filed.   Additional requirements also apply and should be reviewed before the filing of an application.