1. The organ that accepts the patent application
According to the Patent Law, People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Patent Office of the People's Republic of China (now renamed as China National Intellectual Property Administration, the same below) accept and examine patent applications and grant patent rights to inventions and creations that meet the statutory conditions.
China National Intellectual Property Administration is the patent authority in China, and the only institution that has the right to accept patent applications according to law. When applying for a patent, the applicant shall submit the application documents directly to the Intellectual Property Office (hereinafter referred to as the Patent Office). If the applicant submits the application documents to other organs, units or individuals by mistake, it will not have legal effect in the patent examination and approval procedure.
The Patent Office has set up a patent acceptance office and a patent application acceptance window, and set up patent offices in Shenyang, Jinan, Changsha, Chengdu, Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi and Wuhan to accept patent applications and other documents. The address and business scope of the acceptance office of the Chinese Patent Office and the above-mentioned agency shall be announced to the public by the Chinese Patent Office in the form of an announcement.
2. Submit application documents
To apply for a patent or go through other formalities with the Patent Office, the application documents or other documents may be submitted directly to the application acceptance window of the Patent Office or the above-mentioned agencies, or mailed to the acceptance office of the Patent Office or the above-mentioned agencies. Please note the following when submitting documents:
(1) When submitting application documents or documents for handling various formalities to the Patent Office, the form uniformly formulated by the Patent Office shall be used, and each document shall be in duplicate.
(2) A form can only be used for one patent application. For example, an invention patent request can only fill in one invention, and a statement of opinions can only state opinions on a patent application. It is not allowed to fill in several application statements or inventions in an opinion statement or an invention patent request.
(3) All documents submitted to the Patent Office shall be kept by the applicant, so as to ensure the consistency of document filling in the process of application examination and approval, and can be used as a reference when replying to the examination opinions.
(4) If the application documents are sent by post, a registered letter shall be used. If you can't send it by registered mail, you can use express mail instead of parcel. In addition to indicating the detailed address of the patent office or agency (including postal code), the registered letter should also indicate the words "application documents", "received by the patent office" or "received by the agency of the patent office".
The registered letter shall only contain the application documents or other documents of the same application. When mailing, the applicant shall ask the post office staff to clear the postmark date and properly keep the registered receipt stub of the registered letter.
(5) The Patent Office does not accept samples, samples or models when accepting patent applications. In the process of examination, when the applicant submits a sample or model at the request of the examiner and submits it face to face in the window of the patent office, it shall produce a notice of examination opinions; If it is mailed, the words "submit the model at the request of the examiner (name)" shall be written on the mail.
(6) When applying for a patent, a foreigner or foreign unit without a fixed residence or business office in China, or a citizen of China who has lived or worked abroad for a long time, he shall entrust the State Council with a foreign-related patent agency designated by the Patent Office. The above applicant shall not directly mail or submit the application documents to the Patent Office.
Units applying for patents or compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan shall also entrust foreign-related patent agencies or domestic patent agencies respectively in accordance with regulations, and shall not submit them by mail or directly to the Patent Office.
3. Acceptance and acceptance conditions of patent applications
After the patent application is submitted to the Patent Office or each agency, the first thing to do is to examine whether it meets the acceptance conditions. For applications that meet the acceptance conditions, the Patent Office will determine the application date, give the application number, and after verifying the list of documents, issue an acceptance notice, notify the applicant and confirm the receipt of the application documents.
In any of the following circumstances, the Patent Office shall not accept the patent application, notify the applicant and return the application documents.
(1) If the patent application is not filed in the form of circumstances, or is not written in Chinese, it cannot be accepted. For example, it is unacceptable to file a patent application in the form of model, sample, video tape, disk, telephone, etc., and it is also unacceptable to file an application in an untranslated foreign language.
(two) the application documents (including the request) have not been typed or printed, and the handwriting is unclear or altered; Attached drawings or design pictures are not drawn with drawing tools and black ink, or blurred (design photos) or altered, and will not be accepted. For example, drawings and paintings drawn with pencils and blurred photos are not allowed.
(3) The basic application documents are incomplete, for example, the application for a patent for invention or utility model lacks a request, a specification (the application for utility model lacks drawings) or any claim; An application for a patent for design that lacks any request, picture or photograph cannot be accepted. For example, an application for a patent for utility model only submitted the request, specification and claim, but not the attached drawings, so it cannot be accepted. However, the examination of acceptance conditions only examines whether these parts of the patent application are complete, and does not examine whether the documents of each part are complete. For example, the instruction should have1; 5 pages, the applicant only submitted 1 ~ 3 pages and 5 pages, which can still be accepted, and the acceptance office only indicated that it received 4 pages of instructions on the document list. This kind of defect is often irreparable, so the applicant must check it carefully when submitting the application documents.
(4) If the name and address of the applicant are missing in the request, it cannot be accepted. For example, the format of the request is not standardized, and only the name and inventor of the invention are marked on it, but the name and address of the applicant are not marked, so the patent application cannot be accepted because there is no applicant.
(5) Where the category of the patent application (invention, utility model or design) is unclear or uncertain, it shall not be accepted. For example, the applicant submitted a design request, but did not submit pictures or photographs, but submitted instructions and drawings. Because the application for design does not need to submit instructions, it is impossible to determine what patent the applicant wants to apply for and what kind of patent application should be accepted and examined, so it can only be rejected.
(six) nationals or units belonging to countries that have no agreements, treaty relations and patent reciprocity relations with China do not accept applications to China; Or foreigners or foreign units that have no habitual residence or business office in China, as well as compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan who have not gone through the application procedures as required, cannot be accepted. For example, it is unacceptable for a Hong Kong resident in China to send the patent application documents directly to the Chinese Patent Office.
Some defects in the application documents do not affect the acceptance. For example: ① the application documents are not printed by the patent office, but typed or printed in white paper according to the required items; (2) The name of the invention and the name of the inventor are omitted from the request; (3) There is no signature in the request, or the signature has no legal effect, such as the signature of the patent agency, but the power of attorney of the patent agency is not submitted at the same time; (4) If only one list of other application documents is submitted (two application documents are required, one of which is regarded as a list of documents; If only one copy is submitted, the applicant will not get the list of documents). The above defects can be corrected in the examination stage, but the applicant should try to avoid these defects, because the correction will often drag down the examination process. Defects that can be solved in a few minutes before application are often delayed for several months through correction. For the application documents submitted by the applicant to the acceptance office or agency of the Patent Office, the staff of the acceptance office or agency will then review whether the application meets the acceptance conditions, and go through the acceptance procedures on the spot if it meets the acceptance conditions; If the acceptance conditions are not met, the Patent Office will then return the application documents to the applicant and explain the reasons for not accepting them. If you send the application documents to the Patent Office, you should receive the notification of acceptance or rejection and the returned application documents from the Patent Office in about one month. If the notice has not been received for more than one month, the applicant shall inquire with the acceptance office of the Patent Office in time to avoid the loss of the application documents or notice in the mail.