International Searching Authority

The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its Contracting States (see Accession section below for current membership information). A patent application filed under the PCT is called an international application or PCT application.
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An Authority (either a national Office or an intergovernmental organization) [HTML] appointed by the PCT Assembly to carry out international searches. It establishes international search reports and the written opinion of the International Searching Authority.
  

An Authority (either a national Office or an intergovernmental organization) appointed by the PCT Assembly to carry out international searches. It establishes international search reports and the written opinion of the International Searching Authority.
  

International Searching Authority (ISA):
office with competence to carry out the international search for a PCT application. It may be either a national office (AT, AU, CA, CN, ES, FI, JP, KR, RU, SE, US) or an intergovernmental organisation (EPO), (Article 16 PCT, Article 154 EPC).