Harmonizing World Patent Law: WIPO’s May 14, 2002 press release, Progress on Discussions to Harmonize Patent Law, discusses the ongoing work of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) to promote substantive patent harmonization by developing a Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT). This treaty would complement the Patent Law Treaty (PLT) (text available here), a previous WIPO treaty adopted in June 2000. The PLT aims to harmonize national patent formalities throughout the world, and to streamline and simplify the requirements for filing and maintaining patent applications. Because of controversy over substantive law issues (e.g., first-to-file and the grace period) in earlier drafts of the PLT, these issues were omitted. The draft SPLT covers a number of basic legal principles that govern the grant and the validity of patents in different countries of the world, such as the definition of prior art, novelty, inventive step (non-obviousness), industrial applicability (utility), sufficiency of disclosure, and the structure and interpretation of claims.