Search by the European Patent Office: When submitting an application, you must make a search request and pay the search fee. About 2 years from the date of application, I received a search report issued by the European Patent Office, with a preliminary examination opinion on the patent application.
Publication of patent application: The European Patent Office will publish the patent application within 18 months from the date of application.
Request for substantive examination and substantive examination: the applicant shall submit a request for substantive examination at the same time as the application or within 6 months from the date of publication of the retrieval report of the European Patent Office. At the same time as the substantive examination request is made, it is necessary to designate a specific member state from the European member States and pay the examination fee and designation fee. If the transfer fee is paid seven times, all parties to the European Patent Treaty can transfer it, but the transfer fee of the extension country needs to be paid separately. The European patent application enters the actual examination procedure after the substantive examination, and usually receives the examination opinions from the European Patent Office within 1-3 years after the actual examination.
European patent authorization: When it is approved, the European Patent Office will issue a copy of the authorization notice. The applicant chooses to agree to the authorization text and allow this application to enter the authorization procedure, or modify the text or claim according to his own wishes. At the same time, pay the license fee and submit the translation of the claim in the other two languages. In addition, it is necessary to check whether the translation of the priority certificate has been submitted. After the above work is completed, the European patent is officially authorized and a certificate of authorization is issued.
In order to take effect in European member States, generally speaking, after receiving the authorization notice, the applicant must decide to choose the effective country from the list of designated countries and inform the European Patent Office in which countries the patent will take effect. After determining the effective country, according to the regulations of each effective country, it is generally necessary to translate all the contents of this European patent into the language of that country and submit it to the effective country, so that this European patent can take effect in that country. Generally speaking, European member States require that the translation work be completed within three months from the announcement of authorization and take effect in various countries, and nine months after the announcement is the objection period. Therefore, if the applicant needs to take effect in multiple countries, it needs to prepare more fees. After completing the work that takes effect in different countries, the applicant has patents in different countries and is independent of each other, and each item needs to pay an annual fee.