There are many ways to apply for overseas patents, such as landing overseas through the PCT route, applying for overseas patents through the Paris Convention with Chinese priority, or directly submitting overseas patents. Let's take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of these methods in terms of cost and application speed.

Let's start with the cost. If you only need to arrange an overseas application, then the cost of submitting an overseas application directly is the lowest, that is, the applicant only needs to bear the official fees and service fees of the overseas country application. If you file a Chinese application first and then file an overseas application through the Paris Convention, you will need to bear additional official fees for the Chinese patent application. If you submit PCT application first and then land overseas through PCT application, you will need to bear additional PCT international stage fees.

Let's talk about the speed of review. Directly submit an overseas application, or submit a Chinese application first and then submit an overseas application through the Paris Convention, the processing speed is faster than the way of landing on the PCT route. One of the advantages of PCT landing is to leave more time for applicants to consider, lengthening the cycle of patent authorization, and from another point of view, PCT landing is relatively affecting the speed of the case. After filing the PCT, 30 months (from the earliest priority date) is the expiration time, and many countries wait for the expiry of the PCT before starting to queue applications for processing, which undoubtedly lengthens the application cycle.

We can take a look at the cost and speed of different ways from the following table, so that we can make a more intuitive comparison: