1. confidentiality principle
In the process of examination and approval of a patent application, the examiner shall be responsible for keeping confidential the unpublished or announced patent application documents, other contents related to the patent application and other information that should not be disclosed.
2. The principle of written review
The examiner shall conduct the examination on the basis of the written documents submitted by the applicant, and notify the applicant in writing of the examination opinions (including the notice of correction) and the examination results. In the preliminary examination procedure, in principle, no meeting will be held.
3. The principle of hearing
Before making a rejection decision, the examiner shall inform the applicant of the facts, reasons and evidence on which the rejection decision is based, and at least give the applicant the opportunity to state his opinions and/or modify the application documents. When the examiner makes a rejection decision, the facts, reasons and evidence on which the rejection decision is based shall have been informed to the applicant, and shall not contain new facts, reasons and/or evidence.
4. The principle of program preservation
According to the regulations, examiners should strive to improve the efficiency of examination and shorten the examination process. For applications with defects that can be overcome through rectification, the examiner shall conduct a comprehensive review and point out all defects in a rectification notice as far as possible. For an application with substantial defects that cannot be overcome by correction, the examiner may not examine the application documents and other documents in form, but only point out the substantial defects in the notice of examination opinions.