DAS User Guide

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DAS provides a secure, trusted mechanism which allows Offices both to transmit and to access unpublished documents with confidence that the transmission has been permitted by the applicant or other authorized person.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.

An up-to-date list of participating Offices is maintained on the WIPO DAS website at: https://www.wipo.int/das/en/news

As of November 1, 2025, there are 50 IP Offices participating in WIPO DAS. Other Offices are at various stages of preparation to join the system and are expected to join in the future.

The participating Office’s websites also provide useful DAS information relevant to that particular Office. Please see “New Office Participation” on the WIPO website for announcements and details.

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 on WIPO’s website: https://www.wipo.int/das/en/participating_offices.html

The service will be extended to trademarks once participating Offices have made the necessary changes.

The DAS system depends on the IT systems of many different Offices, over which the International Bureau has no control.

If a library in one Office is temporarily unavailable, requests are queued until systems are restored.

This may cause delays, so it is important to register the application and take the required steps as early as possible.

In extreme cases, the Office of Second Filing may be temporarily unable to retrieve your application, but you should still be given an opportunity to provide a paper certified copy if needed.

Network disruptions

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 participating Office, contact the PCT eServices Help Desk for the access code to be resent to the e-mail address you registered for DAS purposes.

Request the Office of First Filing to deposit a copy of the earlier application to DAS.

The exact means of doing this will depend on the requirements of the particular Office with which the earlier application is/was filed.

See the DAS home page at https://www.wipo.int/das/en/ and the PCT Applicant’s Guide, Annex B for the procedure to be followed at each DAS depositing Office, or contact that Office directly.

Links to detailed instructions provided by each Office can be found on the DAS website at: Participating Offices.

To make an earlier PCT application filed at WIPO’s receiving Office RO/IB available to DAS, refer to a separate User Guide “PCT and DAS”.

Following your request to the Office, you will either receive an access code, or else a code which was given to you as part of the application process (for example, in the case of a USPTO application, the 4-digit confirmation number indicated on the original filing receipt) will become available for use as a DAS access code.

The Office of Second Filing will retrieve the priority document from DAS only if you specifically request them to and indicate the access code on the application form.

You can use DAS to meet PCT priority document requirements, by requesting the International Bureau to retrieve an earlier national or regional application that has been filed with a participating Office, or an earlier international application filed with RO/AU, RO/BR, RO/CL, RO/CN, RO/DK, RO/EA, RO/ES, RO/FI, RO/IB, RO/IN, RO/MA, RO/NL and RO/SE.

In terms of giving permission, the International Bureau is treated like any other Office of Second Filing. Even though the International Bureau runs the core systems of DAS, it cannot access your applications for use as PCT priority documents, unless you have provided it with the access code. A separate detailed User Guide on how to use DAS for PCT purposes, named “PCT and DAS”, is available on the WIPO DAS web site at https://www.wipo.int/das/en/documentation.html.

After you have taken the necessary steps with the Office of First Filing to make your priority application available via DAS, you can request the International Bureau to obtain it by marking the corresponding check-box in the Priority details of the request form PCT/RO/101 and indicating the access code in the relevant space.

If you filed a PCT application without DAS indications, it is also possible to provide them after filing. This can be done in the ePCT service (https://pct.wipo.int) as an Online Action or via the Upload Documents feature. For detailed instructions on how to use ePCT, please refer to the HELP topics accessible via the ePCT home page.