What are the main procedures in the patent examination procedure
The main procedures that applicants may encounter during the review process are divided into two categories:
The first type is the application that the law stipulates or the patent office designates the applicant to handle If the examination and approval procedures are not completed without justifiable reasons or are processed after the deadline, the application will be deemed to have been withdrawn. These procedures mainly include: submitting a request for substantive examination, responding to various notices from the Patent Office, and paying application maintenance fees;
The other type is the request procedure that applicants can choose to go through as needed in accordance with legal provisions. If this type of procedure does not meet the requirements, the Patent Office may treat the procedure as if it has not been filed, which generally does not involve the application itself. These procedures mainly include: proactive modification and correction of application documents, request for early publication, declaration of change of bibliographic items and request for extension of time limit.
The following procedures are explained respectively:
1. Substantial examination request
Only invention patent applications need to go through this procedure.
A request for substantive examination can be submitted at the same time as the application, or It can be submitted after application, but it should be submitted within 3 years from the date of application at the latest. If it is not submitted after the deadline without justifiable reasons or is deemed not to have been submitted due to unqualified procedures, the application will be deemed to have been withdrawn.
A request for substantive examination can only be made after paying the substantive examination fee Take effect. However, if the substantive examination fee is not paid after submitting the substantive examination request, the Patent Office will not immediately issue a substantive examination request for review. If the request does not meet the requirements, the issuance of the substantive examination request will be regarded as a failure to submit a notice or a supplementary notice as appropriate, and a written notice will be issued. Explain the reasons for failure.
If the applicant receives a notice of correction, it should Make corrections within the time limit specified by the supervisor. If the applicant receives a request for substantive examination and is deemed to have not submitted a notice, he shall resubmit a new request for substantive examination that meets the requirements within 3 years from the date of application. If the request for substantive examination passes the examination, the Patent Office will publish it in the Patent Gazette.
While submitting a request for substantive examination, the applicant celebrated The reference materials related to the invention before the filing date of the application (before the priority date if priority is claimed) shall be disclosed. If there are no reference materials, a statement shall be made.
If an application for the invention patent has been filed in a foreign country, a foreign application should be submitted at the same time. The information or results of the search; if it is not submitted without justifiable reasons, the application will be deemed to have been withdrawn; if there is a valid reason for being unable to submit, a statement and explanation of the reasons shall be made, and the application may be resubmitted after the information is obtained. If the above information is submitted, the reasons should be stated in the request (the request for substantive examination is submitted at the time of application) or the document or attachment column of the request for substantive examination.
When making a request for substantive examination, the applicant can conduct an examination of the invention A proactive revision or correction.
2. Reply to various notifications from the Patent Office
During the preliminary examination or substantive examination procedure, the examiner found When the application has obvious defects, format defects, or substantive defects, the applicant shall be notified in the form of a correction notice or an examination opinion to make corrections or modifications to the application within a specified time or to state the opinions on the defects specified by the examiner. .
The applicant must reply to this. Otherwise, the application will be deemed withdrawn.
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