The Patent Cooperation treaty (PCT) is an international treaty that allows seeking patent protection for an invention in a simultaneously way in different countries, which are assigned to this treaty. 

Specifically, the procedure of this treaty begins with the filing of an international patent application before the National Patent Office of the PCT Contracting State, or before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in Geneva. Currently, the PCT is ratified by more than 150 Contracting States, including Colombia. 

For the filing of said international patent application, the possible languages are those accepted by the PCT receiving Offices. For example, German, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French, English, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian.

Thus, after the filing of the patent application, the International Searching Authority (ISA) are responsible for issuing written opinions related with the patentability of the claimed patent application, that is, these Authorities verify the compliance of the patentability requirements of an application.
 
Once this stage has ended, the content of the international application is disclosed/published along with the International Search Report, within a period of 18 months counted from earliest filing date of the initial patent application. 

Subsequently, and optionally, it is possible that the Applicant of the patent may require a Supplementary International Search, whereby another Search Authority will also conduct a new search of published documents related to the patent application, this, in order to establish an additional analysis of patentability.

Moreover, once the PCT procedure is finished, after 30 months from the earliest filing date of the initial patent application, from which the Application could claim priority, the Applicant can file the patent application directly before the Regional Offices of each PCT Contracting States.

Accordingly, the filing of patents via the PCT route is an accessible, easier and cost-effective way that allows the Applicant of a patent to file an international application, which will be valid in each Contracting State of the Treaty.