you can apply for an invention patent for a new technical scheme proposed for a product, method or improvement; You can apply for a patent for utility model for a new technical scheme that is suitable for practical use according to the shape, structure or combination of products; A new design that is aesthetically pleasing and suitable for industrial application is made according to the shape, pattern or their combination of products and the combination of color and shape and pattern, and can apply for a patent for design.
2. what application documents should be submitted for patent application? To apply for a patent for invention, the application documents shall include: the request for a patent for invention, the specification (with drawings when necessary), the patent claim, the abstract and its drawings in duplicate. For an application for a patent for invention involving amino acid or nucleotide sequence, the specification shall include the sequence table, and the sequence table shall be submitted as a separate part of the specification, and at the same time, the CD or floppy disk with the sequence table in accordance with the provisions of China National Intellectual Property Administration shall be submitted. To apply for a patent for utility model, the application documents shall include: the request for a patent for utility model, the specification, the appended drawings of the specification, the patent claim, the abstract and the appended drawings, each in duplicate. To apply for a patent for design, the application documents shall include: a request for a patent for design, pictures or photographs in duplicate.
where color protection is required, color pictures or photos shall also be submitted in duplicate.
if pictures are submitted, both copies shall be pictures; if photos are submitted, both copies shall be photos, and pictures or photos shall not be mixed.
if you need to explain the pictures or photos, you should submit a brief description of the design in duplicate.
3. when applying for a patent, the applicant of the department that accepts the patent application shall directly submit or send the application documents to the receiving office of China National Intellectual Property Administration Patent Office (hereinafter referred to as the receiving office of the Patent Office), or submit or send them to the patent agency established in China National Intellectual Property Administration. At present, China National Intellectual Property Administration patent agency has been established in Beijing, Shenyang, Jinan, Changsha, Chengdu, Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi 'an, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Harbin and Changchun. The National Defense Patent Branch specializes in accepting applications for national defense patents.
4. How to apply for a patent When applying for a patent, you should submit the necessary application documents and pay the fees according to the regulations.
patent applications must be handled in written form or electronic application form.
written application documents cannot be replaced or omitted by oral explanation or providing samples or models.
Only written documents have legal effect in patent examination and approval procedures.
all kinds of formalities should be signed and sealed according to the regulations, and the signature should be completely consistent with the name filled in the request.
the signature shall not be copied.
all the applicants should sign and seal the procedures involving the transfer of rights, and other procedures can be handled with the signature and seal of the applicant's representative. If a patent agency is entrusted, it should be handled with the signature and seal of the patent agency.
if the formalities need to be accompanied by supporting documents or attachments, the supporting documents and attachments shall be original or duplicates, and no duplicates shall be used.
if there is only one original, a copy can be used, but at the same time, it needs to be accompanied by a certificate issued by a notary office that the copy is consistent with the original.
5. How to arrange the application documents when submitting an application? The application documents for a patent for invention or utility model should be arranged in the following order: request, abstract of specification, appended drawings of abstract, patent claim, specification, appended drawings of specification and other documents.
the application documents for a patent for design shall be arranged in the order of request, picture or photograph and brief description.
all parts of the application documents should be numbered in Arabic numerals.
6. what are the paper requirements for the application documents? The paper quality of the application documents should be equivalent to that of the copier paper.
there must be no useless words, marks, boxes, lines, etc. on the paper.
A4 size (21mm× 297mm) paper shall be used for all documents.
the paper of the application document should be used vertically, and only one side should be used.
the text should be arranged from left to right, with 25mm blank on the left and top of the paper, and 15mm blank on the right and bottom to facilitate publication and review.
The first page of each part of the application document must use the form uniformly formulated by China National Intellectual Property Administration.
these forms can be obtained from the reception office of the patent office, patent agencies in various places or downloaded directly from the website of China National Intellectual Property Administration.
7. what are the writing and writing requirements of the application documents? All parts of the application documents shall use Chinese characters.
if there is no uniform Chinese translation of foreign names, place names and scientific and technological terms, it should be indicated in English or the original text.
if the attachment or certificate provided by the applicant is in a foreign language, it should be accompanied by a Chinese translation. The application documents, including the request, should be typed or printed in Song Dynasty, Imitation Song Dynasty or italics, and the handwriting should be black, with a height of 3.5 ~ 4.5 mm and a spacing of 2.5 ~ 3.5 mm..
if the documents are required to be submitted in duplicate, one of them shall be the original and the other shall be a copy.
if there are drawings in the application documents, they shall be drawn with ink and drawing tools, or with drawing software, and the lines shall be uniform and clear, and shall not be altered.
8. The singularity of the content of a patent application requires that an application for a new patent for an invention or utility model should be limited to one invention or utility model.
two or more inventions or utility models belonging to a general inventive concept may be filed as one application.
an application for a patent for a design should be limited to a design used by a product.
two or more designs of products used in the same category and sold or used in sets may be filed as one application.
9. how to fill in and write the application documents? There are specific requirements for the filling and writing of application documents, and the applicant can fill in or write them by himself or entrust a patent agency to handle them on his behalf.
Although it is not mandatory to entrust a patent agency, considering the importance of carefully writing the application documents and the legal rigor of the examination and approval procedures, it is worth promoting for applicants with little experience. 1. Acceptance of Patent Application After receiving the patent application, the Patent Office or the patent agency will determine the application date, give the application number and issue a notice of acceptance for the application that meets the acceptance conditions.
for the application documents submitted by the applicant to the acceptance office of the patent office or the patent agencies in person, whether the application meets the acceptance conditions at that time will be examined, and the acceptance procedures will be handled on the spot if the application meets the acceptance conditions.
11. If the notification of acceptance sends the application documents to the acceptance office of the Patent Office, you can receive the notification of acceptance or rejection and the returned application documents from the China National Intellectual Property Administration Patent Office (hereinafter referred to as the Patent Office) within about one month.
if the notification from the patent office has not been received for more than one month, the applicant shall inquire with the reception office of the patent office in time to avoid the loss of the application documents or notification in the post.
12. How to pay the application fee. The application fee and other fees can be paid directly to the toll office of the patent office or the patent agency, or remitted by bank or post office.
At present, banks use electronic transfer and post offices use electronic remittance. When paying patent fees through post offices or banks, the payer should indicate the correct application number or patent number on the remittance slip, and the name of the paid fees should be abbreviated.
the remitter should require the bank or post office staff to enter the above payment information in the remittance postscript column. If remittance is made through the post office, the post office staff should also be required to enter the complete mailing address, including the postal code.
13. when is the application fee paid? If the application documents are submitted to the acceptance office of the Patent Office or the patent agency in person, the application fee may be paid at that time after the notification of acceptance is obtained.
if an application is submitted by mail, the application fee shall be paid after receiving the acceptance notice, but the date of payment of the application fee shall not exceed 2 months from the date of application at the latest.
14. how to determine the payment date? If the application fee or other fees are paid in person to the toll office of the Patent Office, the payment date is the payment date.
if the remittance method meets the relevant regulations, the actual remittance date of the bank or post office shall be the payment date.
However, if it is more than 15 days from the date of remittance to the date of receipt by the Patent Office, the date of receipt by the Patent Office shall be the payment date, unless the post office or bank issues a certificate to provide evidence.
15. Patent approval procedures? According to the Patent Law, the examination and approval procedure of an application for a patent for invention includes five stages: acceptance, preliminary examination, publication, actual examination and authorization.
The application for a patent for utility model or design does not undergo early publication and substantive examination, but only includes three stages: acceptance, preliminary examination and authorization.
16. Active revision and correction of application documents is also a procedure that the applicant can choose as needed.
An application for a patent for utility model and design is only allowed to be voluntarily amended within 2 months from the date of application; The application for a patent for invention is only allowed to actively modify the application documents within 3 months from the date of submitting the request for real examination and receiving the notice from the Patent Office that the application for a patent for invention has entered the substantive examination stage.
17. Respond to all kinds of notices from China National Intellectual Property Administration Patent Office (1) Abide by the time limit for reply, and the consequences of late reply are the same as those of no reply.
answer the questions pointed out in the notice of review opinions one by one.
The reply can indicate that you agree with the examiner's opinion, and make corrections or modify the application according to the review opinion; You can also disagree with the examiner's opinion and defend and state the opinions and reasons.
(2) It is a defect in format or procedure, which can generally be eliminated through correction; Obvious defects are generally difficult to eliminate through correction or modification, and in most cases, we can only defend and state our opinions on whether there are or belong to obvious defects.
(3) No amendment or amendment to an application for a patent for invention or utility model shall exceed the scope recorded in the original specification and claims, and no amendment to an application for a patent for design shall exceed the scope indicated in the original picture or photograph.
the modified document shall be submitted with a replacement page in the specified format.
(4) The reply shall be submitted in the prescribed format.
if you submit a correction or opinion statement.
the applicant shall choose whether to use the supplement or the opinion statement according to the requirements of the examiner.
generally, for problems in the form or procedure of correction, the correction book is used, and the substantive content of the application is modified by the opinion statement. If the applicant disagrees with the examiner's opinion, the opinion statement is used when defending.
18. Is the application deemed to be withdrawn and resumed? If the prescribed procedures are not completed within the time limit, the application will be deemed to have been withdrawn, and the Patent Office will issue a notice of deemed withdrawal.
if the applicant has justified reasons, he may, within 2 months from the date of receiving the notice deemed to have been withdrawn, request the patent office to restore his rights, and explain the reasons.
in case of requesting the restoration of rights, a "request for restoration of rights" shall be submitted in duplicate, explaining the legitimate reasons for delaying the deadline, and at the same time, completing all the unfinished formalities that should be handled and paying the required fees.
generally, the formalities for completing the formalities and the fees for making up the fees should be completed within the above two months.
19. go through the formalities of patent registration? If an application for a patent for utility model or design has been preliminarily examined and an application for a patent for invention has been substantially examined, and no reason for rejection has been found, the Patent Office will issue a notice of authorization and a notice of registration.
after receiving the notice of authorization and the notice of registration, the applicant shall go through the registration formalities and pay the prescribed fees in accordance with the requirements of the notice within 2 months.
if the registration formalities are completed within the time limit and the prescribed fees are paid, the patent office will grant the patent right, issue a patent certificate, record it in the patent register and announce it in the patent bulletin, and the patent right will take effect from the date of announcement.
failure to go through the registration formalities within the prescribed time limit shall be deemed as waiver of the right to obtain the patent right.
2. Reject the application and request a review? In the examination procedure, after the applicant has stated his opinions or made amendments or corrections at the request of the examiner, if the Patent Office considers that the application still does not conform to the provisions of the Patent Law and its detailed rules for implementation, it shall make a decision to reject the application and notify the applicant in writing.
if the applicant is not satisfied with the decision of the patent office to reject the application, he may, within 3 months from the date of receiving the notice, request the China National Intellectual Property Administration Reexamination Board for reexamination.
A request for reexamination shall be submitted in duplicate, in which the reasons for reexamination shall be stated. The reasons for reexamination shall be to appeal against the matters requested in the rejection decision of the Patent Office, otherwise it will not be accepted.
in order to support the reasons for reexamination or eliminate the defects in the application documents, the applicant may attach relevant supporting documents or materials when requesting reexamination, or modify some contents involved in the rejection decision.
the request for reexamination shall be submitted by all applicants.
the request for reexamination shall also pay the prescribed fee.
21. Fees to be paid for registration When going through the registration formalities, it is not necessary to submit any more documents. The applicant only needs to pay the patent registration fee (including the printing fee of the announcement) and the annual fee, stamp duty and maintenance fee of the invention patent application for the current year.
the annual fee for the year of authorization is the annual fee for the year of authorization.
22. If the applicant for recovery after giving up the right to obtain the patent fails to go through the registration formalities within the prescribed time limit, it will be regarded as giving up the right to obtain the patent right.
if the applicant has justified reasons for delaying the deadline, he can request the right to be restored.
the request to restore the right shall be made within 2 months from the date of issuing the notice issued by the Patent Office as a waiver of obtaining the patent right, and at the same time, the registration formalities shall be completed (the patent registration fee and the annual fee for the year of authorization, and the maintenance fee shall be paid if the application for a patent for invention needs to be paid) and the prescribed request fee for restoring the right shall be paid.
23. Maintenance of patent right After the patent application is granted the patent right, the patentee shall pay the annual fee for the next year one month before the expiration of each year.
if the annual fee is not paid or paid in full, the Patent Office will issue a notice of payment to inform the patentee to pay it back within 6 months from the date when the annual fee should be paid, and at the same time pay a late fee.
the amount of the late payment fee shall be calculated by adding 5% of the full annual fee of the current year for each overdue payment time of one month; If it is not paid at the expiration of the time limit, the patent right shall be terminated from the date when the annual fee payable expires.
24. The termination of patent right can be divided into the following reasons according to its termination: (1) Termination at the expiration of the time limit: the patent right for invention lasts for 2 years from the date of application, and the patent right for utility model or design lasts for 1 years from the date of application, and is terminated according to law; (2) Termination of non-payment: The Patent Office will issue a notice of payment, informing the applicant that after paying the annual fee and late payment fee, if the applicant still fails to pay or fully pay the annual fee and late payment fee, the patent right will be terminated from the expiration date of the previous year.
25. Where the patent right is declared invalid or partially invalid by the request for invalidation of the patent right, the fee shall be paid as required, and the request for invalidation shall be submitted in duplicate, with the name and patent number of the patent requested to be declared invalid, the facts and reasons on which it is based and the necessary evidence attached.
If any party refuses to accept the decision made on the patent invalidation request, it may bring a suit in a people's court within 3 months from the date of receiving the notice.
the patent office shall register the decision after it becomes legally effective.