The WIPO Digital Access Service (“DAS”), available at https://www.wipo.int/das/en/, allows you to meet requirements for providing priority and similar documents in respect of participating Offices, without the need to obtain and send multiple certified paper copies of an application.
Instead, you ask the Office where you are claiming priority (“Office of Second Filing” or OSF) to download a copy of the document directly from a digital library, normally held by or on behalf of the Office where the earlier application was filed from which priority is claimed (“Office of First Filing” or OFF).
DAS provides a secure, trusted mechanism which allows Offices both to transmit and to access unpublished documents with confidence that the transmission has been permitted by the applicant or other authorized person.
It is essential that users properly understand what is required to give permission for this transfer. Because the system is designed to work between pairs of Offices, which may have no other working relationship, there are steps involved, which are different from, or additional to those in other priority document exchange systems in operation between certain Offices.
Participating Offices:
An up-to-date list of participating Offices is maintained on the WIPO DAS website at: https://www.wipo.int/das/en/news
Other Offices are at various stages of preparation to join the system and are expected to join in the future.
Documents Which Can Be Made Available:
The service is intended for use with documents related to patents, utility models, industrial designs and trademarks.
At present, the service is operational for exchange of patent, utility model and design priority documents.
The scope of documents which can be made available also depends on the policy of the Office of First Filing. Some Offices will allow any patent application filed at their Office to be entered into the system; other Offices offer the service only for a limited range of applications, such as those which have been filed in electronic form.
The relevant scope for each participating Office is outlined in each Office's notification on WIPO’s Digital Access Service (DAS) website at: https://www.wipo.int/das/en/participating_offices.html
The service will be extended to trademarks, once the participating Offices have made the necessary operational and technical changes.
User guide contents:
Unavailability of systems components
The DAS system as a whole depends on the IT systems of many different Offices, over which the International Bureau has no control.
However, the system is designed to cope with situations where a library in one Office is not available for a period, and in such cases requests are placed in a queue until the relevant systems are available again.
This may cause delays, therefore it is important to register the application and take the appropriate steps as earlier as possible.
It may also delay the Office of Second Filing from successfully retrieving a copy of your application, but this should only affect you in extreme cases and you should always be given an opportunity to supply a paper certified copy, in the unlikely event that the system fails completely for any particular case.
Lost Access Control Codes
If you lose your DAS access code for an earlier application filed at CN, EP, FI, JP, KR, NZ or US, please contact the Office where you filed that application.
If the application was filed at another DAS participating Office, contact the PCT eServices Help Desk for the access code to be resent to the e- mail address that you have provided for DAS purposes.
Support
For any DAS related questions, please contact the PCT eServices Help Desk, available Monday to Friday from 09:00 until 18:00 Central European Time. Every attempt will be made to respond to questions within one business day.
Web Form contact: https://www3.wipo.int/contact/en/area.jsp?area=das is available by clicking on the ‘Contact Us’ link at the top right corner of any DAS webpage.
The Help Desk can also be contacted by telephone at +41 22 338 9523.
The Help Desk is closed on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on non-working days at WIPO which are listed at: https://www.wipo.int/contact/en/holidays.html