Three categories of U.S. patents:

Invention Utility patent

Plant invention Plant patent

Design patent

The application procedures include provisional application (Provisional) and normal application (non-provisional), continuing application (continuing application), partial continuation application (Continuation-in-Part Application), and re-awarding procedures (Reissues)

Provisional application:

1. In order to obtain the application date as early as possible, there is no need to claim, and the fee is lower than that of normal application.

2. It can be converted into a normal application.

3. If you do not request to convert to a normal application within 12 months from the date of application, it will be deemed to be abandoned and cannot be restored.

4. A normal application can claim the priority of a provisional application, but not vice versa.

5. Only inventions can enjoy the priority of provisional applications. There is no provisional application for designs.

Normal application (non-provisional):

1. Provisional application can be converted into a normal application.

2. You can proactively modify (preliminary amendment) before receiving the first OA.

Under normal circumstances, it is disclosed in 18 months. The actual review starts automatically from the application (queuing up for review). The first OA is generally issued in 14 months. As long as the applicant requests not to be disclosed in advance, the PTO will not Make it public in advance and then make it public if there is an issue.

3. Before the OA involving patentability, other OAs may be issued, such as divisional cases, etc. The term is one month.

4. OA is usually done twice. The second OA is usually the final OA. The time limit for replying to the final OA is generally three months. It is best for the applicant to reply within two months. Therefore, the examiner Advisory action will be issued within the three-month response period, so that the applicant's next action can be taken within three months without paying an extension fee. In the advisory action, it will tell whether the modifications in the reply to the "final office action" are accepted, the status of the claim, and the result of the applicant's reply. Even if the "final office action" opinion is negative, you should respond promptly.

5. Examiners are generally not allowed to make changes when responding to the final OA (even if the defects pointed out in the notice can be overcome), because the examiner needs to search again. Applicants can overcome deficiencies in the final OA by filing for continued examination (RCE).

6. Reply to advisory action:

1) If the applicant believes that there is a high possibility of overcoming the defects through modification, then propose to continue the review of the RCE;

2) If you think it is unlikely to overcome the defects through modification and you disagree with the examiner’s point of view, consider filing an appeal (rarely used);

3) If you file a continuation application, you can get the review on the one hand Claims that the members agree with can be continued to argue for disagreements to avoid being completely dismissed.

4) Meet when necessary. RCE is generally proposed and appeal is rarely used because of the high cost and long time.

Continuing application:

Continuing application: The description cannot add new content, and the claims may be different, but they must involve the same subject matter as the claims in the parent case.

Mainly apply under the following two circumstances

a) After final rejection, the applicant needs to modify his rights.

b) The examiner allows some claims but rejects some claims (such as claims with a wider scope). In order to obtain authorization for the allowed claims as soon as possible, the applicant can reply to the OA Delete the rejected claim. For deleted and rejected claims, the applicant may file a continuation application and at the same time amend the claims.

Continuation-in-Part Application:

New content is added to the description, and new claims can be summarized based on the new content added to the description. There is no difference from filing a new application. The protection period is calculated from the filing date of the parent case.

Reissue procedure (Reissues): Correcting the errors of the authorized patent and modifying the authorized patent. The patentee proposes that no new content is allowed to be added and the scope of claims is not allowed to be expanded within two years after granting