American patents include inventions, designs and new plant varieties.
American invention patent: 20 years from the date of filing, and the maintenance fee is paid in the third and a half years, seven and a half years and eleven and a half years from the date of registration. The scope of protection relates to the patent of the composition or the method of using the composition, and its validity can be extended to 5 years at the longest.
American design patent: fourteen years from the date of registration. You can still file a patent application within half a year after publication (this is a big difference between American patent novelty judgment and China patent).
Patent of new plant varieties: 20 years from the date of application, and the maintenance fee shall be paid in the third, seventh and eleventh years from the date of registration.
There are three ways to apply for a patent in America: 1. Apply for a patent directly in the United States (confidential examination needs to be conducted in China Patent Office in advance, and you can apply for a patent directly in the United States after the confidential examination is passed); 2. Apply for a patent in the United States through the Paris Convention (the priority is only 12 months); 3. Apply for a patent in the United States through the PCT Patent Cooperation Treaty (priority can reach 30 months).
information needed
(1) American patent application for invention and design:
1, specification, patent application part and attached drawings
2. affidavit and power of attorney
3. Small individual declaration (the applicant is an individual, or a small enterprise with less than 500 employees, or a non-profit organization)
(2) Temporary application:
1, description, drawings and names, addresses and nationalities of all inventors.
2, small personal declaration
(3) Priority of creditor's rights:
If the same invention (or design) has been applied in other Paris Convention countries, and the original application date is claimed in the United States, an application shall be filed with the United States Patent Office within one year (including Taiwan Province Province) from the application date of the first foreign application (the design is half a year).
(4) novelty requirements (first invention principle and one-year preferential period principle)
An invention loses its novelty if it is patented in the United States or other countries or published in publications, or publicly used or sold in the United States for more than one year; On the other hand, if it is less than one year, it still has the novelty of applying for a patent [1].
Apply for financial assistance
The cost of applying for patent authorization in the United States is relatively high, but many government departments in China subsidize, subsidize and even reward it. For example, if you apply for a patent in the United States through the PCT Patent Cooperation Treaty, you can get subsidies from the Ministry of Finance, and if you apply for a patent in the United States through other channels, you can usually get financial support from local governments at all levels from provinces to districts.
Official fee waiver
1, natural person; 2. If the number of employees in the company is less than 500, this concept includes the relevant number of companies that have a holding relationship or hold more than 50% of the voting shares; 3. Academic or research non-profit organizations, such as universities and colleges, but excluding relevant government units;
Those who meet one of the above conditions may apply for a 50% reduction in official fees.
Application characteristics
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1. You can still file a patent application within 1 year after the publication of the invention patent technology, and it is not considered that novelty is lost.
2. Provisional patent application (priority)
The U.S. Patent Office allows the applicant to submit a written patent specification to obtain the patent application date, and the temporary application will not be subject to substantive examination. If the patent applicant fails to turn the temporary application into a formal application within 12 months from the date of filing, the temporary application will be deemed to have been abandoned and made public. The applicant is allowed to use "pending patent" in the temporary application, and the application for patent for design is not applicable to the temporary application.
3. Continuous application (technical scheme unchanged, protection scope changed)
On the basis of the original application, an application to modify the scope of patent protection without modifying the essence of the invention should usually be approved by modifying the patent claim without modifying the patent specification after final verification and before abandoning the original application, and the application date of the original case should be retained.
4. Partial application (similar to domestic partial priority provisions)
When the original application needs to add new substantive contents, it shall be based on the original application. Before the original application is abandoned, you can apply for a partial serial case. The filing date of the same part as the original case is the same as that of the original case, and the newly added part is the filing date of the new continuous case.