In order to further strengthen the patent work in Xiangyang City, strive to increase the number of invention patent applications and authorizations in the city, and give full play to the role of the patent system in promoting technological innovation, the Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology (Intellectual Property) issued a document stipulating that enterprises, institutions and individuals with annual invention patent applications of more than 10 and authorizations of more than 5 will be awarded 654.38+10,000 yuan; Enterprises, institutions and individuals that apply for more than 20 invention patents and authorize more than 10 will be rewarded with 200,000 yuan.
Patent application process:
Pre-patent application retrieval
Before applying for a patent, it is best to search to determine which inventions belong to the "prior art". If the content of the application has been recorded in the retrieved patent documents or other public publications, it may affect the authorization prospect of the application. In addition, even if there is no literature, the patent application will be rejected if others can determine that it is common knowledge in this field.
Benefits of patent retrieval
A careful understanding of what belongs to the existing technology will help the applicant to judge whether to apply for a patent and write a patent application document. The "background technology" part of the specification should be written with the closest existing technology. For utility model patents, it is usually necessary to provide background drawings, so that examiners and the public can clearly understand the substantial improvements and advantages of the invention.
Patent application documents
Inventions and utility models: request, specification and its abstract, patent claim; Inventions can have drawings as required, and utility models must have drawings; An application for invention involving new biomaterials shall submit a preservation certificate and a survival certificate; Where nucleic acid or amino acid sequence is involved, the machine-readable text of the sequence table shall be submitted.
Design: requirements, pictures or photographs; Indicate the products using the design and their categories; Request for color protection, submit color pictures or photos; If necessary, write a brief description of the design; Brief description should indicate design points, omitted views, colors to be protected, etc.
Patent examination
After the patent application is submitted to the State Information Bureau, it will be notified to accept it, and will be reviewed after paying the full fee. Patent examination is divided into preliminary examination and substantive examination, the latter is only for invention patents.
The patent examination process generally lasts 1-3 years, depending on the patent type and invention content. The utility model and design patents are authorized after preliminary examination, while the invention patents that pass the preliminary examination will issue a preliminary examination notice, waiting for substantive examination.
When the patent application is under examination, the applicant has no right to prevent others from infringing on his rights. However, after the publication of the invention patent (usually 18 months from the date of patent application), the applicant may ask the infringer to stop the infringement and pay the appropriate royalties, or the infringer may refuse. After the patent is granted, the applicant may pursue the tort liability from the infringer through judicial procedures and demand compensation.
Substantive examination of invention patent
The substantive examination of the invention is conducted in the actual examination department of the patent office. Examiners evaluate the novelty, creativity and practicality of patent applications by searching domestic and foreign patent documents and public publications, and also review whether the writing of patent documents meets the requirements, such as whether it meets the requirements, whether it is single, whether it is fully open, whether it is out of scope, etc.
The substantive examination must be carried out after the invention is published. According to the law, the publication is carried out within 18 months from the date of filing. Some applicants are willing to disclose their inventions in advance, so there will be patent applications published within 6- 10 months. Usually, the examiner in the actual trial stage will send at least one notice of examination opinions to the applicant or his agent, and the examination opinions can reflect the possibility of the invention being authorized and the existing defects. Review opinions generally include format errors, novelty problems, creativity problems, full openness problems, oneness problems and so on.
The time for examination of patent substance is uncertain, generally 6- 18 months, which depends on the content of the invention, the examiner's understanding of the invention, the examiner's work arrangement and the time for documents to travel back and forth between the examiner and the applicant or his agent.