The Examination Procedure

Every Country has a different approach to whether or not a patent is Examined and if it is Examined What the Examination entails. Most Countries do however, have a strict Examination process where every application is scrutinized to ascertain whether or not the Requirements of Patentability such as Novelty, Inventive step and Industrial applicability have been met.

In the United States an application is unlikely to be Examined until two years after it has been filed. On review, it is highly likely to be rejected by the Examiner. This will be conveyed to you in a first Office Action. Typically, the Examiner will cite a variety of prior art patents or literature that he believes may be relevant to the patentability of the invention. The Office Action should also give technical and legal reasons for the rejection. The Action will state when response is due. A typical response will usually include amendment to the original application and/or substantive argument to support the Claimed invention.

The response will be reviewed and the Examiner will either accept the arguments made or reiterate the findings of the First Office Action and make final the previous ruling or issue a new ruling. Sometimes there may be two or more rounds of correspondence with an Examiner before the Examiner's final decision is reached.

If the Examiner makes the rejection final, there are several actions that may be available if the inventor(s) wishes to continue to seek a patent for the invention, including appeal of the Examiner's ruling or filing of a new or continued application.

Allowance/Acceptance

Once all correspondence has issued back and forth and the Examiner is ultimately satisfied that the invention is sufficiently different from prior inventions, inventive and capable of industrial application the application will be allowed or accepted. Taking the US situation after allowance of the application, the USPTO requires payment of a substantial issue fee before printing and issuing a patent. The time from allowance to issuance of the patent is usually about four to eight months.

Once issued the Application becomes a Full Patent and may legally be infringed and infringement action taken.