After receiving the application, the patent office usually conducts a set of tasks before granting a patent. There are three major stages:
- A formal assessment
- Content assessment
- Certificate of protection and publishing
The standard process at each stage is a written transaction between the patent officer and the applicant. The industrial property agent may work as a middleman, receiving patent office announcements, advising the applicant on proper activities, analyzing for the applicants and making instructions, responses to the patent office.
Formal Assessment
This stage will check any problems relating to the application’s form following with regulations, such as whether the application was filled out accurately and whether all required information was provided. The candidate has the chance to change any mistakes stated during the evaluation. If the mistakes are not resolved within a specific period of time, the patent office will reject the application.
Content Assessment
The search’s aim is to find suspected technical solutions in the technical field to which the invention relates. To assess the content, the patent office will search its database for documents that describe a solution that is same or comparable to the solution stated in the patent application.
The purpose of content assessment is to ensure that the application meets the standards for patent granting. Basically, the purpose of this assessment is to prevent patents from being granted to:
- Invention is not protected due to specific legal rules;
- Invention is not new, lacks a creative step, and/or is not capable of industrial application; or
- Invention has not been completely and clearly described.
The submitter, like in the formal assessment, has the right to object to decisions made during the content assessment. Not all patent offices do content assessments of patent applications. Some countries grant patents after a formal assessment. When a conflict happens, the court will decide if the patent is actually valid and whether it fits the terms of protection.
Certificate of protection and publishing
If and when the examination procedure results in a decision to the benefit of the applicant, which means that all formal and content standards are met, and if there is no objection or the objection is rejected, the authority will grant a patent for that application. This includes a few steps that are under the control of the patent office:
- The National Patent Register provides information regarding inventions;
- The applicant will receive a patent. This is a legal document that proves an invention’s ownership.
- In general, patent documents are published by the Patent Office. Many patent offices publish patent applications 18 months after their submission or priority date.
Normally, the owner must pay a renewal or validity fee to the patent office each year and during the protection term to maintain the validity of the invention.
