The various statutory deadlines applicable to divisional applications, such as the time limit for submitting a request for substantive examination, shall be calculated from the original filing date. For various time limits that have expired or are less than two months from the date of submission of the divisional application to the expiration date, the applicant may make a new application within two months from the date of submission of the divisional application or within 15 days from the date of receipt of the acceptance notice Various procedures. If the application is not reissued upon expiration, the examiner will issue a deemed withdrawal notice. For example, for invention patent application A, the filing date was October 15, 2009. The applicant submitted a request for substantive examination on September 1, 2012, and the application entered the substantive examination stage on September 30, 2012. The applicant submitted Divisional Application B on November 1, 2012. At this time, for divisional application B, the time limit for submitting a request for substantive examination should still be calculated from the original filing date, that is, October 15, 2009. Since this period has expired when the divisional application B is submitted, the applicant can file a request for substantive examination within two months from the filing date of the divisional application B (November 1, 2012).
It should be noted that the protection period of a divisional application is calculated from the original filing date. This is different from the protection period of an application claiming priority, which is calculated from the actual filing date. For divisional applications, various fees should be charged as a new application. For various fees that have expired or are less than two months from the date of submission of the divisional application to the expiration date, the applicant may make up for the fees within two months from the date of submission of the divisional application or within 15 days from the date of receipt of the acceptance notice. pay. If the payment is not made at the end of the period or is not paid in full, the examiner will issue a deemed withdrawal notice. Taking the above case as an example, since the time limit for paying the substantive examination fee has expired when submitting the divisional application B, the applicant can make up the substantive examination fee within two months from the date of submission of the divisional application (November 1, 2012). fee.