What are the situations in which patent applications are divided?

When applying for an invention or utility model patent, documents such as a request, a description and its abstract, and claims must be submitted. What are the situations in which patent applications are divided? The editor of Legal Savior Network has compiled relevant content for you. You are welcome to browse, thank you.

What are the situations in which patent applications are divided

Several situations of patent application division:

If an application has the following conditions that do not meet the unity, The applicant should be required to modify the application documents (including handling separate cases) to make them comply with the requirements of unity.

(1) The original claims contain Two or more inventions that meet the requirements of unity.

The originally submitted claims contained no If there are two or more inventions belonging to a general inventive concept, the applicant should be required to limit the application to one of the inventions (generally the invention corresponding to claim 1); for the remaining inventions, the applicant can submit a divisional case Apply.

(2) In the revised application documents There is no unity between the added or substituted independent claims and the invention in the original claims.

During the examination process, when amending the claims, the applicant adds or replaces the invention that was originally only described in the specification as an independent claim in the original claims. The original independent claim lacks unity between the invention and the originally claimed invention. In this case, the examiner should ask the applicant to delete the later-added invention from the claims. The applicant can delete the invention Submit a divisional application for the invention.

(3) One of the independent claims lacks novelty or inventive step, and the remaining claims lack unity.

A certain independent claim (usually claim 1) lacks novelty or inventive step, resulting in differences between other independent claims that are juxtaposed with it, or even its dependent claims. The same or corresponding specific technical characteristics are lost, that is, the lack of unity, so the application needs to be handled separately. For example, an application including a product, manufacturing method and use, after search and examination, it is found that the product is known , the remaining independent claims for the manufacturing method of the product and the independent claims for the product use obviously cannot have the same or corresponding specific technical features, so they require divisional applications.

The division of cases in the above situation can be made by the applicant on his own initiative, or by the applicant on his own initiative. The case is divided at the request of the Patent Office. It should be noted that since the divisional application is a voluntary act by the applicant, the examiner only needs to require the applicant to change two or more inventions that do not meet the unity requirement into one invention, or change them into one invention. For two or more inventions with a general inventive concept, it is entirely up to the applicant to decide whether to submit a divisional application for the remaining inventions after modification.

In addition, one application can file one or more divisional applications, and one divisional application can itself be divided into one. one or more divisional applications. This mainly depends on actual needs and possibilities.

"Patent Law Implementing Rules" 42 If a patent application includes two or more inventions, utility models or designs, the applicant may file a divisional application with the patent administration department of the State Council before the expiration of the time limit specified in paragraph 1 of Article 54 of these Rules; however, If the patent application has been rejected, withdrawn or deemed withdrawn, a divisional application cannot be filed.

The Patent Administration Department of the State Council believes that a patent application is not If it complies with the provisions of Article 31 of the Patent Law and Article 34 or 35 of these Rules, the applicant shall be notified to modify the application within the specified period; if the applicant fails to respond within the specified period, the application shall be deemed withdrawn.

The divisional application shall not change the category of the original application .

Article 43 In accordance with Article 4 of these Rules Article 12 provides that a divisional application filed may retain the original filing date, and if it enjoys priority, the priority date may be retained, but it shall not exceed the scope recorded in the original application.

The divisional application shall be made in accordance with the Patent Law and these Rules Complete relevant procedures according to the regulations.

The application number and filing date of the original application should be stated in the request for divisional application. When submitting a divisional application, the applicant should submit a copy of the original application documents; if the original application enjoys priority, the original application should also be submitted A copy of the priority document.

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