1. Submit an application: When submitting an application, you need to pay the application fee, search fee, review fee and application documents at the same time, otherwise late payment fees will be incurred; after the application is submitted, the USPTO will issue an official receipt, immediately You can see the main information of the case such as the application number; in addition, the United States has special requirements for claims. If there are multiple citations, additional official fees will be incurred: $780 for large entities, $390 for small entities, and $195 for micro entities. If there are multiple citations, items will not be accepted by the USPTO, so when entering the US stage, we will make preliminary amendments in accordance with the requirements of US patent law to modify the claims to avoid additional costs or formal examination rejection; if there are When it comes to related Prior Arts, it is necessary to make an IDS and submit it to the USPTO. If an IDS is not submitted, the authorized patent may also be invalidated if it is determined to be "intentional deception" when it comes to patent validity in the future;
2. Formal review: After passing the formal review, the USPTO will Issue a formal official acceptance notice;
3. Disclosure: After passing the review, it will be automatically published within 18 months from the application date or priority date, or it will be disclosed within 18 months from the application date at the request of the applicant. ;
4. Practical review: It usually takes 12 to 18 months for the review opinion to be issued. If rejected, the applicant must respond within 3 months from the date of receipt of the notice. The applicant can submit a request for a deadline extension, which can be extended for up to 3 months; US applications generally receive 1-2 review opinions. If they cannot overcome the review opinions and receive a final rejection, they can choose to continue to respond (the probability of being adopted is low) or submit Reply and RCE (somewhat similar to China review, but there is no limit to the number of RCEs. After the official fee is paid, the USPTO will conduct a re-examination, and the process is the same as a new case), or request an appeal.
5. During the examination process, if some claims can be authorized, you can also seek authorization first. Unauthorized rights can be submitted to a Continuation Application (CA) to continue arguing with the examiner. If the applicant needs to add new substantive content during the application process, he can submit a Continuation-in-part (CIP). The newly added content will not enjoy the priority of the parent case. CA and CIP need to be submitted in the parent case. The authorization fee has been submitted before, and the official fee is the same as for the new case. After authorization, there will be a separate patent certificate (it can be regarded as an independent patent in China and receive corresponding government subsidies).
6. Patent registration procedures: If no reason for rejection is found after review, an authorization notice will be issued. The applicant shall complete the patent registration procedures within three months from the date of receipt of the notice and pay the registration fee. fee.