I’ve recently had to request the recordal of the change of applicant details on a PCT application. It was a straightforward situation. I had a signed Deed of Assignment from the current applicant company to the new applicant company. The only complication was that the national phase entry deadline was less than a month away.
The first option was to submit a letter to IP Australia, which is the receiving office for this international patent application, requesting that they ask WIPO to record the change. Because I wanted to be sure that the details of the new applicant were recorded on the WIPO database (Patentscope) before national phase entry I was concerned that lodging the request through IP Australia might add to the time taken for WIPO to receive and process the request. The second option was to file directly with WIPO. It is possible to do that and that’s what I ended up doing.
There’s no particular form for requesting the change in applicant details (there is a form for Receiving Offices to make the request but I don’t know of any form for applicants or attorneys).
There are a couple of ways to lodge the request with WIPO. The simplest way is to send them a (fortunately WIPO still receives es, unlike IP Australia). It’s also possible to register with WIPO’s online services and upload a PDF of the letter. I took the second option and uploaded the letter with a copy of the assignment. I then received a confirmation of my submission.
About three days later the PCT/IB/306 form issued confirming the recordal of the change with WIPO and the transmission of the change to the national offices. About a week later I noticed that the new applicant details had appeared on the Patentscope database.
So, all in all a fairly straightforward procedure.