Tools/raw materials
1. Paris Pact approach:
1) Application documents: including specification, claims, drawings of specification, abstract and abstract drawings;
2) Application information: Chinese and English names, addresses and postal codes of the applicant and inventor, country of application, contact person, etc.
3) Where priority is claimed, the priority certificate of the earlier application shall be provided.
2. Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) method:
1) Original application documents and PCT request or published PCT application brochure;
2) International search report;
3) Claims amended according to Article 19 of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (if any);
4) International preliminary examination report and application documents modified according to Article 34 of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (if any).
5) Application information: Chinese and English names, addresses and postal codes of the applicant and inventor, application country, contact person, etc.
European invention patent application steps
Submit a petition
Applicants choose English, French and German. One of the three official languages is applicable to the European Patent Office. Generally, China applicants choose English to apply.
Search request and European patent office search
When submitting an application, you must make a search request and pay the search fee. The European Patent Office usually searches the existing technical documents related to the patentability of the application and informs the European Patent Office of the search results. When the applicant receives this search report, it is usually necessary to evaluate the patentability and the possibility of obtaining authorization of his invention according to the search results.
Publish a patent application
For the European patent application submitted through the Paris Convention, the European Patent Office will publish the patent application at the expiration of 18 months from the priority date.
For the European patent application submitted through PCT, if the language published by PCT does not belong to the official language specified by EPO, the application will be published in the language of the submitted European patent application. If the language published by PCT already belongs to the official language specified by EPO, the application does not need to be published repeatedly.
Request for substantive examination
For an application for a European patent submitted through the Paris Convention, the applicant shall submit a request for substantive examination within 6 months from the date of publication of the search report of the European Patent Office, and at the same time, designate a specific member state from among the States parties to the European Patent Convention, and pay the examination fee and designation fee.
For the European patent application submitted through PCT, the applicant shall submit the European patent application with substantive examination request, and at the same time designate a specific member state from among the EPC contracting States, and pay the examination fee and designation fee. For the application submitted before April 1 2009, all parties to EPC can be designated if 7 designated fees are paid; For applications submitted after April 1 2009, all contracting States can be designated by paying 500 euros at one time. However, the designated fee for expanding the country needs to be paid separately.
Substantive review and veto
After the substantive examination request is made, the European patent application enters the actual examination procedure, and the applicant usually receives the examination opinions from EPO within 1-3 years after the actual examination. For each application document, the examiners in the relevant fields of the substantive examination department will form a three-person examination team, consisting of the first examiner, the second examiner and the team leader.
In view of the review opinions, the application documents are usually refuted or modified according to the examiner's opinions. However, when the defense fails to reject the objection, the applicant will be given the opportunity to participate in the "oral hearing procedure" held in EPO, and the applicant can personally present his opinions to three members of the European Bureau handling the case. When the application is rejected at the oral hearing stage, the applicant also has the right to appeal to the Appeal Board of the European Patent Office.
Authorize, oppose
When the review is passed, EPO will issue an authorization notice. The applicant chooses to agree to the authorization text and allow this application to enter the authorization procedure, or make some modifications to the text or the claim, and pay the authorization fee and submit the translation of the claim in the other two languages. In addition, it is necessary to check whether the translation of the priority certificate has been submitted. After the above work is completed, the European patent is officially authorized and a certificate of authorization is issued.
After the authorization decision is made, the objection period is 9 months from the date of authorization announcement. After the European patent is awarded, anyone can raise an objection except the patentee.
In the European patent application procedure, the applicant can appeal against the decision made by the acceptance office, examination department, objection department or legal department. In addition, nine months after the announcement of the European patent authorization, the patent office in the effective country will handle the invalid request on its own.
In force in European member States.
Generally, after receiving the authorization notice, the applicant must decide to choose the effective country from the list of designated countries and inform the European Patent Office (EPO) in which countries the patent will take effect. After determining the effective country, according to the regulations of each effective country, in addition to paying the fee to the effective country, the specification or claim of this European patent should be translated into the language of that country and submitted to the effective country for registration, so that this European patent can take effect in that country. Generally speaking, European member States require that the translation work be completed within three months from the announcement of authorization, and it will take effect in all countries. If the applicant fails to submit the translation within the time limit, the patent right in this country will be lost.
maintain
After completing the work that takes effect in different countries, the applicant has patents in different countries and is independent of each other, and each item needs to pay an annual fee.
end
Matters needing attention
Applicants generally need to apply to the European Patent Office 2-3 months in advance, and entrust an agency to start translation and document preparation.