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The number of amendments made by the applicant can be many times, but the examiner points out that there are unauthorized defects in the patent application by issuing examination opinions, generally no more than two times.

On the consolidation of claims

Section 5.4 of Chapter 3 of Part IV of the Examination Guide stipulates: "The combination of claims refers to the combination of two or more claims belonging to the same independent claim. At this time, the merged technical features are combined to form a new claim. The new claim shall contain all the technical features in the consolidated claim. "

The following example analyzes the specific modification method. For example:

Claim 1: A product characterized by including features A and B. ..

Claim 2: The product according to claim 1, characterized by further comprising feature c. ..

Claim 3: The product according to claim 1 is characterized by further comprising feature D. ..

According to the above provisions on merger, merger refers to the merger of two or more claims subordinate to the same independent claim. In other words, merger only refers to the merger between dependent claims, and all dependent claims are subordinate to the same independent claim. In this case, claims 2 and 3 satisfy the above conditions. After the merger, the new claim shall contain all the technical features of the merged claim. That is to say, it should contain a, b, c and d.

Claim 2 and Claim 3 are subordinate to the same independent claim 1 respectively, and there is no subordinate relationship between Claim 2 and Claim 3. What if there is a subordinate relationship between two creditor's rights to be merged? Might as well continue the above example:

Claim 4: The product according to claim 3, characterized by further comprising feature E. ..

If claim 4 and claim 3 are merged, it certainly belongs to "the merger of claims subordinate to the same independent claim", we will find a very interesting phenomenon.

All technical features of claim 3 are: a+b+c;

All technical features of claim 4 are: a+b+c+d;

After the addition of the two, all the features of the new claim are still: a+b+c+d; That is to say, if 4 and 3 merge, due to the subordinate relationship between them, the result of the merger is still claim 4 itself.

From this, a theorem can be deduced: the combination of dependent claims is equal to the smallest claim.