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. Submit the application documents, get the notification of acceptance from the Patent Office, determine the application date, and submit an early public statement and request substantive examination on the day of submitting the documents, which 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 this communication may be repeated many times until it is revised to the satisfaction of the examiner.
6, the patent office issued a notice of authorization
7. The applicant shall go through the formalities for obtaining the 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.
Next, write your own application documents.
It should be said that writing patent application documents is a highly technical job. Moreover, applying for a patent is not only as simple as writing patent application documents, but also involves searching for comparative documents in the fields involved in patents. If the comparison document discloses the invention content, the agent shall communicate with the inventor whether the technical problem can be transformed and the corresponding technical scheme. If the inventor cannot add new content in this case, the customer is advised to withdraw the case. When writing the application documents, the claims and instructions should take into account the problems that may arise when answering the examination opinions and how to remedy them. If it is invalid, only the claim can be modified, and the content cannot be deleted from the specification; Is the scope clearly defined in the case of infringement? Whether it is possible to be bypassed and so on. It can be said that before applying for a patent, a qualified agent should have a global grasp and understanding of the latest technical content in the field involved in the invention, and on the basis of considering the interests of the applicant, he can make an overall layout of whether to apply (which can be kept as a technical secret), how to apply (whether it is necessary to apply for an invention, utility model or appearance abroad) and possible existing technologies (how to avoid it). Being able to do the above is the basic requirement of a mature and experienced agent. It is the applicant's luck to find such an agent, and the scope of patent protection can get the strongest protection.
Unfortunately, in the current atmosphere of our country, the applicant is more concerned about the price, how to minimize the agency fee, and quality is second. Maybe they think that after the agent operates, the result is similar. Faced with this demand from customers, agents have to lower their service standards. Most agents only do file transfer and format conversion of technical disclosure content, which saves time and effort, and the quotation can be reduced all the way, and the applicant is also very happy. As for authorization, there is no problem with utility model and design. As long as the scope of protection is minimized, the examiner has no opinion and everyone is happy. When the patent really needs to play a role, the tiger comes out, and the applicant will find a sick cat in the cage, wasting the application fee, agency fee and annual fee in vain, and only getting a useless blank sheet of paper.
In order to apply for a patent, many companies or individuals can learn the writing requirements by looking at the patent law temporarily and prepare an application document that meets the formal requirements (you can learn it on the website of China National Intellectual Property Administration Patent Office, China). The application process was also smooth, the authorization was smooth, and the certificate was obtained. The key point is that the "value" of this patent is gone, but it is just a paper tiger used to scare people.
Therefore, we suggest that if the applicant really wants to expand the scope of patent protection and really wants to play the role of "tiger" in the market, don't worry about money, or ask the best and most professional agent to help you plan.
I wish you success and make a good choice!