Foreign national patent applications
Patent applications can be filed at the National Patent Office of each country in which you wish to protect your invention.
Contact details for each of our offices are available on our website
www.chapmanmolony.com
Where are foreign national patent applications filed ?
Foreign national patent applictions
A national Patent application may be filed at the national Patent Office of a foreign country in the local language. If you wish to file a national Patent application in a foreign country, it will be necessary for us to appoint a local patent Attorney to be responsible for the patent application procedure in that country. For this purpose, we have established an network of overseas Attorneys, who are fully qualified patent Attorneys in their country, to assist us with filing and prosecuting foreign national patent applications. Further details of our overseas Attorneys are available on request.
What happens after the application is filed ?
The procedure following the filing of a foreign national patent can generally be divided into four stages - search, publication, examination and grant. A summary of these stages is given below:-
1) Search
After filing, a search examiner at the foreign national Patent Office may conduct a search through previously published patent specifications (and possibly a limited range of other literature) to identify published documents which may be relevant to the patentability of the invention. A search report listing these documents is normally issued (together with a copy of the documents), and we report this to you.
2) Publication
In most foreign countries, the application is published by the national Patent Office approximately 18 months from the filing date (or the priority date if priority is claimed from an earlier application). If the search report is favourable and the chances of obtaining a patent are good, the applicant will usually decide to proceed to the next stage, “Examination”.
3) Examination
In some countries, it is necessary to file an “Examination Request” (and pay an examination fee) within a specified period. Provided these requirements are fulfilled, the application is then passed to an Examiner who will consider whether the invention is patentable, according to the local national patent law. The national Patent Office Examiner will in most cases issue an “Examination Report” (sometimes referred to as an “Official Letter” or an “Office Action”) detailing any objections to the application. These objections generally relate to the Examiner’s opinion regarding the patentability of the invention. We then report the Examination Report to you and, following discussion with you, we prepare instructions for our local Attorney to prepare and file a response which deals with the objections. Several Examination Reports may be issued on an application, and each must be responded to. The costs of prosecuting a patent application through the Examination stage will depend on the number of Examination Reports that are issued, and the amount of time required to prepare a response to each Examination Report.
4) Grant
Once the Examination stage has been concluded, and the Examiner’s objections have been overcome, the foreign national Patent Office will formally accept the application and, subject to payment of various fees (such as grant and/or printing fees), the foreign national Patent will be granted and a certificate of grant will be issued.
Contact details for each of our offices are available on our website
www.chapmanmolony.com
Renewal Fees
Following the grant of a patent, annual renewal fees will become payable. In some countries, renewal fees are also payable before grant.
Costs
The cost of filing and prosecuting foreign national patent applications varies from country to country, and is dependent upon exchange rate variations. Your bill will be calculated from disbursements (e.g. Patent Office fees, draughtsmen’s charges, overseas attorneys’ charges, telephone, copying, fax and travel costs), service charges (a flat rate administrative charge specific to a particular job done and covering mainly clerical matters) and charges for the professional time spent on a specific matter. Professional time is calculated by recording all time spent (whether on the telephone, in meetings, preparing documents or otherwise dealing with your file). Consequently, most of our charges can only be estimated as they depend largely on the time spent. However, we try our utmost to keep to our estimates. Last updated April 2008.
www.chapmanmolony.com