Patent Cooperation treaty or PCT is an international agreement that simplifies the process of filing patent applications in different countries. Administered by the WIPO, PCT is a seamless route to file an International application, provide an international filing date for a patent application and to facilitate the Applicant to formulate a suitable IP strategy before embarking into different jurisdictions.

India successfully protected its traditional knowledge by stalling a leading UK-based laboratory’s move to patent a medicinal composition containing turmeric, pine bark and green tea for treating hair loss. The UK-based company – Pangaea Laboratories Limited – had filed the patent application in February, 2011. The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) could manage to prove the European Patent Office (EPO) that turmeric, pine bark and green tea have been used since time immemorial as an effective treatment for hair loss in the indigenous systems like Ayurveda and Unani.