How long does it take for the patent rejection review?

According to Article 4 1 of China's Patent Law, the committee responsible for patent reexamination accepts and examines the reexamination request and makes a decision. The cases requesting reexamination mainly include those that request patent reexamination because they refuse to accept the decision to reject the patent application in the preliminary examination and substantive examination procedures. The patent reexamination procedure is only applicable to patent applicants, and the reexamination time must be put forward to the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office within 3 months after receiving the notice of rejection. The patent reexamination procedure includes four stages: formal examination, preliminary examination, collegiate examination and reexamination decision.

First, the formal examination of the patent reexamination procedure

After receiving the reexamination request submitted by the claimant, the Patent Reexamination Board shall first conduct a formal examination. The main contents of formal review include: the object of reexamination request, the time limit of reexamination request, the qualification of reexamination requester, reexamination expenses, reexamination reasons, the format and content requirements of reexamination request, and the power of attorney of patent agent when necessary.

Second, the pre-trial of the patent reexamination procedure

According to Article 6 1 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, the Patent Reexamination Board needs to send the reexamination request (including the attached supporting documents and revised application documents) that has passed the formal examination to the original examination department that made the rejection decision for examination. This inspection is a pre-inspection. According to the requirements of Section 3. 1 in Chapter 2 of Part IV of the Review Guide, except in special circumstances, the original review department usually needs to complete and make a "pre-review opinion" within one month after receiving the case file.

Third, the collegiate review of the patent reexamination procedure

In the process of collegiate panel review, the collegiate panel conducted a comprehensive study on the review request, application documents and the pre-trial opinions of the original review department.

In the collegiate panel review, the collegiate panel generally only reviews the reasons and evidence on which the rejection decision is based.

However, if the collegial panel finds that the review text has defects that can be rejected, and is accompanied by other reasons and evidence that have been informed to the applicant before making the rejection decision, or there are obvious substantive defects that are not pointed out in the rejection decision or are of the same nature as the defects pointed out in the rejection decision, it may review the relevant reasons and evidence, and after examination, it shall make a review decision to maintain the rejection decision based on the reasons and evidence.

In addition, the collegial panel can introduce common sense in its technical field or supplement common sense evidence in its technical field such as technical dictionaries, technical manuals and textbooks.

Four. Re-examination decision of patent re-examination procedure

The written decision of reexamination shall be written by the presiding judge according to the voting results of the collegial panel, signed by all members of the collegial panel, approved by the director or deputy director of the Patent Reexamination Board when necessary, and sent to the petitioner in the name of the Patent Reexamination Board. If the patent application involved in the reexamination decision has been made public, the Patent Reexamination Board will make it public. For these reexamination decisions that should be publicized, the conclusion is to maintain the original rejection decision. If the petitioner refuses to accept the lawsuit and accepts it in court, the reexamination decision will be publicized together with the court judgment after the court judgment becomes legally effective. This book will be published together.