European patent application procedure
1. application
Applicants can apply to the European Patent Office (EPO) in one of the three official languages: English, French and German. After EPO accepts the application, it will issue an acceptance notice, including the application number and application date.
2. Search of the European Patent Office
The European Patent Office usually searches the existing technical documents related to the patentability of the application and informs the patent lawyer of the search results. When the applicant receives this search report, it is usually necessary to evaluate the patentability and the possibility of obtaining authorization of his invention according to the search results.
3. Publish the patent application
If the applicant applies specially, the European Patent Office can publish the patent application in about 3 months at the earliest. If there is no special application, the patent application will be published within 27 months from the priority date (application date), hoping to make a search report before publication, so that the applicant can make a choice whether to continue the application process. However, due to the large number of patent applications in Europe, more and more search reports are issued after publication.
4. Make a request for substantive examination and conduct substantive examination.
The applicant shall, at the same time of filing the application or within 6 months from the date of publication of the retrieval report of the European Patent Office, make a request for substantive examination, designate a specific member state from among the European member States, and pay the examination fee and designation fee.
If you apply for a European patent through PCT, the procedure for submitting an examination request and designating a country must be put forward and paid at the time of filing the application.
5. European patent authorization
After the examination and approval, the European Patent Office will issue a notice of authorization. The European Patent Office will issue a European patent authorization certificate after handling the registration procedures and fees.
6. Entry into force in Member States
Generally, 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. 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 it will take effect in all countries. 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 applicants have patents in different countries and are independent of each other.
The above is about how to operate the EU patent application. What is the EU patent application process? The answer. In terms of intellectual property, there are many such examples. If you have any questions, please feel free to log in to Intellectual Property for consultation and understanding.
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