The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides an intermediary patent office called the International Bureau (IB) that acts as a pit stop before entering any one or more of the one hundred fifty-three (153) contracting states to the PCT. While IB does not have powers to grant a patent, filing an international PCT application provides an international filing date and an international application number along with a period of typically thirty (30) or thirty-one (31) months for the applicant to identify their intended markets of interests.