First of all, citizens have the right to apply for a patent, and the State Intellectual Property Office cannot reject your application on the grounds that it is the same technical solution.
In other words, you can apply for anything. This is your right, but whether you can be authorized is another matter.
Secondly, Article 22 of the Patent Law stipulates:
Inventions and utility models for which patent rights are granted shall possess novelty, creativity and practicality.
Novelty means that the invention or utility model does not belong to the existing technology; no unit or individual has applied for the same invention or utility model to the patent administration department of the State Council before the application date, and It shall be recorded in patent application documents or published patent documents published after the filing date.
Creativity means that compared with the existing technology, the invention has outstanding substantive features and significant progress, and the utility model has substantive features and progress.
Practiceability means that the invention or utility model can be manufactured or used and can produce positive effects.
The term "existing technology" as used in this Law refers to the technology that was known to the public at home and abroad before the filing date.
Patent Examination Guidelines record:
Judgment of inventive step for combined inventions
A combined invention refers to the combination of certain technical solutions to form a new Technical solutions to solve the objective technical problems of existing technologies.
When judging the creativeness of a combined invention, it is usually necessary to consider: whether the combined technical features support each other in function, the ease of combination, whether there is any inspiration for combination in the prior art, and the combination final technical effects, etc.
(1) Obvious combination
If the claimed invention is simply a combination or connection of certain known products or methods, each working in its ordinary way, and If the total technical effect is the sum of the effects of the combined parts, and there is no functional interaction between the combined technical features and is just a simple superposition, then this combined invention does not involve creativity.
For example
An invention of a ball-point pen with an electronic watch. The content of the invention is to install a known electronic watch on the body of a known ball-point pen. After the electronic watch is combined with the ballpoint pen, the two still work in their own conventional way. There is no functional interaction and it is just a simple superposition. Therefore, this combined invention does not involve creativity.
In addition, if the combination is only a modification of a known structure, or the combination is within the scope of continued development of conventional technology and does not achieve unexpected technical effects, then such a combination invention does not possess creativity.
(2) Non-obvious combination
If the technical features of the combination support each other functionally and achieve new technical effects; or the technical effects after the combination are better than each other. If the sum of the effects of two technical features is superior, then this combination has outstanding substantive features and significant progress, and the invention is creative. Whether each individual technical feature of the combined invention itself is fully or partially known does not affect the evaluation of the inventiveness of the invention.
For example
The invention of "cryogenic treatment and electroless nickel-phosphorus-rare earth plating process" is to combine the well-known cryogenic treatment and electroless plating with each other. The existing technology requires unconventional temperature tempering of the workpiece after cryogenic treatment to eliminate stress and stabilize the structure and performance. In the present invention, after cryogenic treatment, the workpiece is not subjected to tempering or aging treatment, but is electroless plated in a plating solution of 80°C ±10°C. This not only eliminates the need for tempering or aging treatment, but also makes the workpiece It still has a stable matrix structure and a coating that is wear-resistant, corrosion-resistant and well combined with the matrix. The technical effects of this combined invention are previously unimaginable to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the invention is creative.
It can be seen that combining existing technologies, if it is a non-obvious combination, is creative and can also be authorized.