What are the common problems in the patent reexamination procedure?

What are the common problems in the patent reexamination procedure? Patent reexamination procedure refers to a kind of remedy for the applicant when the patent application is rejected. The number of patent re-examination cases has increased year by year, and some special problems in the re-examination procedure have attracted more and more attention. Let's take a look at the common problems in the patent reexamination procedure. What are the common problems in the patent reexamination procedure? I. Objects in Patent Re-examination According to the provisions of China's Patent Law, the objects of a patent re-examination request are limited to the decision to reject the patent application, which specifically includes two categories: first, the decision to reject the application for a patent for invention, utility model or design is found to be inconsistent with the provisions of Article 44 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, and the defects have not been eliminated after statement, amendment or two corrections; Second, in the substantive examination of the application for a patent for invention, if it is found that it does not conform to the provisions of Article 53 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, and the defects have not been eliminated after making statements and amendments, a decision shall be made to reject it. Decisions outside these two categories are not the object of patent reexamination. If you apply for a second interview, it will be rejected if it is not accepted or even accepted. II. Extension of Patent Re-examination Procedure After the collegial review of the patent re-examination request, there are mainly two kinds of notices issued by the Patent Re-examination Board: one is the notice of re-examination (ordinary), and the other is the notice of oral hearing of the request for re-examination (rare), and the time limit for reply is specified (1 month). Before the expiration of the prescribed time limit for reply (including the expiration of the deadline), a request for extension of the time limit may be made. If the extension period is less than 1 month, it shall be calculated as 1 month, and the longest extension period shall not exceed 2 months; Generally, the time limit stipulated in the same notice can only be extended 1 time, with a maximum extension of 2 times; 300 yuan will be postponed 1 time every month, and 2000 yuan will be postponed again every month. In other words, for the specified time limit in patent reexamination, the longest extension time can reach 4 months, and the highest cost is 4600 yuan. III. Restoration of Rights in Patent Re-examination Procedure There are two situations in which rights need to be restored in patent re-examination procedure: First, the time limit for re-examination request is delayed for justified reasons (within 3 months from the date of receiving the rejection decision), resulting in the loss of the right to re-examination; Second, due to justifiable reasons, the designated reply period of the notice of reexamination was delayed (within 1 month from the date of receiving the notice of reexamination), resulting in the loss of the right to apply for a patent. There is a difference between these two situations when dealing with the restoration of rights. Four. Oral hearing in the patent reexamination procedure According to the patent examination guidelines, the collegiate bench can conduct the examination by written hearing, oral hearing or a combination of written hearing and oral hearing. In practice, patent re-examination cases are usually mainly written examination, and oral hearing is rare, but the re-examination requester can consider putting forward oral hearing according to his own needs. V. Telephone discussion in the patent reexamination procedure The Patent Examination Guide does not stipulate whether telephone discussion is allowed in the reexamination procedure and how to conduct the telephone discussion procedure, so there are few opportunities for telephone discussion in practice. However, the existing regulations do not exclude this way of language communication. Like the substantive examination stage, the telephone discussion in the examination procedure is mainly applicable to the case of minor defects that will not cause misunderstanding. Generally speaking, when the collegial panel encounters problems of the above nature and thinks that it may be necessary to cancel the rejection decision, it will take the form of telephone discussion. Time in the Patent Reexamination Procedure of intransitive verbs The current laws and regulations do not stipulate the time limit for the Patent Reexamination Board to examine the request for reexamination (the measures for controlling the time limit for reviewing cases by the Patent Reexamination Board are only implemented as internal regulations). According to the author's personal experience, the average time of patent reexamination cases (mainly electricity) from reexamination request to acceptance notice is about 1.5 months, and the average time from acceptance notice to reexamination notice is more than 1.5 months. In other words, the total time of all review links (filing, accepting, issuing a reply, replying, making a review decision, etc.). ) may reach more than 20 months. If the time for substantive examination is added, the patent application will take longer. The time interest of patent applicants may be lost. What are the common problems in the patent reexamination procedure? We are here to answer this question for you. If you want to apply for patent reexamination, please contact our online customer service or call Bajie Intellectual Property National Free Service Hotline. We have many years of professional intellectual property agency experience, first-class business team and the concept of serving customers wholeheartedly, which will definitely help you apply smoothly.