(1) An invention shall be announced after acceptance, preliminary examination, and the final result (authorization or rejection) shall be made after the actual trial is announced. The whole process is one and a half years faster and three to five years slower.
(2) The utility model must go through acceptance, preliminary examination and the final result after preliminary examination (authorization or rejection). The whole process takes about half a year.
Based on this, you can ask managers what the specific requirements are for "applying for a patent" and what steps they need to take to graduate.
Besides, since you have graduated, he won't let you graduate because the patent application is not authorized. What is this ~