It takes a long time to apply for a patent, from filling in application documents and writing materials to accepting professional applications, paying application fees and approving. According to the provisions of China's patent law, applications for different patents generally go through the following procedures:
1, application for invention patent
1. It usually takes 20 days to one month to provide a disclosure letter and entrust an agency to write the application documents (if there is no entrusted agency, this step can be omitted).
2. Submitting the application documents, obtaining the notification of acceptance from the Patent Office, determining the application date, and submitting an early public statement and requesting substantive examination on the submission date can speed up the examination process.
3. The Patent Office will formally review the patent application documents for about 2-3 months, and enter the public preparation stage after the first trial is passed.
It takes about 6-8 months for the patent office to publish the invention application documents.
5. The time for the Patent Office to substantially examine the invention patent documents is about one and a half to two years, during which the examiner communicates with the applicant on the substantive content of the invention, namely novelty, creativity and practicality (entrusting the agency to communicate with the agency to determine the appropriate protection scope of the invention), and the communication may go back and forth several times until it is revised to the satisfaction of the examiner.
6. The Patent Office issues an authorization notice.
7. The applicant shall go through the formalities for obtaining a patent certificate.
8. It takes about 2-3 months to get the patent certificate.
The whole process lasts about two and a half to three years, and the specific time depends on the speed of the examiner's review and the informative degree of the applicant's disclosure.
2, utility model and design patent application
1. It usually takes 10 working days to provide disclosure and entrust an agency to write application documents.
2. Submit the application documents, obtain the notification of acceptance from the Patent Office, and determine the application date.
3. The Patent Office will make a formal examination of the patent application documents, which will take about 3-6 months.
4. The Patent Office issues an authorization notice.
The applicant shall go through the formalities of obtaining the patent certificate.
6. It takes about 2-3 months to get the patent certificate.
Matters needing attention in individual patent application
In the process of participating in competitions or applying for projects, when applying for patents and software copyrights, you need to find a professional agency to act as an agent, which greatly improves the authorization rate!
Since the reform of the patent examination system, the application time for new utility model patents has been extended to 7- 14 months, and the application time for invention patents has been 2-3 years. It is a waste of money and time if the applied patent cannot be authorized because of the poor quality of the agency. Besides, universities usually have only four years, so it is very necessary to find a professional and reliable intermediary.
If you find some agents or private agents on a treasure to save money, the patent authorization rate is not guaranteed at all, and regular large agents will not appear on a treasure. As shown in the figure below, the rejection rate of some institutions is so high that it ranks first with the rejection rate of 34.7%, which is equivalent to 100 patents, and 34 patents cannot be authorized.