How to determine the patent application date and what is the importance of the application date
1. How to determine the application date?
Article 28 of the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China It stipulates: "The date when the patent administration department of the State Council receives the patent application documents is the filing date."
1. When the applicant submits documents to the Patent Office in person, the date when the Patent Office receives the documents is the filing date;
2. If the application documents are mailed, the postmark date shall be the date of application.
3. If the postmark is unclear, it cannot or If it is difficult to identify, the Patent Office will inform the applicant that if the applicant can submit evidence of the exact date when the application documents were sent by the post office, the date of sending the documents will be the filing date;
4. If the applicant cannot provide relevant supporting documents, the date when the patent administration department of the State Council receives the application documents is generally the date of application.
2. The importance of the application date
1. Start and end dates of the protection period
The Patent Law stipulates the starting date of the protection period of all patent rights They are all calculated from the date of patent application. The protection period of invention patent rights is 20 years, and the protection period of utility model and design patents is 10 years.
2. Affecting the exercise of patent priority
Article 29 of the Patent Law stipulates that 12 days from the date the applicant first files a patent application for an invention or utility model in a foreign country Within months, or within 6 months from the date when a patent application for a design was first filed in a foreign country, if another patent application is filed in China on the same subject, in accordance with the agreement signed by the foreign country and China or the international treaty to which both countries are parties, Or priority can be enjoyed in accordance with the principle of mutual recognition of priority.
If the applicant files another patent application for the same subject with the Patent Administration Department of the State Council within 12 months from the date of first filing a patent application for an invention or utility model in China, the applicant may enjoy priority.
The purpose of patent priority is to exclude the possibility of plagiarizing this patent in other countries and filing an application first to obtain registration. Therefore. Patent priority is important for some demonstrated patents. The exercise of patent priority will also be affected by the filing date.
3. The date of patent application affects the novelty of the invention
In patent examination, the "prior art" compared to judge novelty and inventiveness are based on the technology before the first filing date. . The difference in filing date seriously affects the novelty of the invention.
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