The firm has established long-term friendly and cooperative relations with many foreign first-class intellectual property firms or law firms in the Americas, and can provide clients with patent application services in countries including the United States, Canada, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Venezuela, El Salvador, Ecuador and so on. The following focus on the United States patent registration, other countries in the Americas patent applications similar.

I. Overview of American patents

The United States is a member of the Paris Convention, is also a member of the PCT, so to the United States to apply for a patent through the way of the Paris Convention directly to the United States to apply for a patent, can also apply for a patent in the United States through the PCT application. U.S. patents include Utility patents, Design patents, and Plant patents, but do not include Utility models.

There are three ways to file a patent in the United States:

1. Apply for patent directly to the United States (need to do confidential examination in advance in the Chinese Patent Office, after passing the confidential examination, you can directly apply for patent in the United States);

2. Apply for a patent in the United States through the Paris Convention (priority is 12 months only);

3. Apply for a patent in the United States through the PCT Patent Cooperation Treaty (the priority is up to 30 months).

II. Materials required for the United States patent application

1. Description, patent claim and drawings

2. Affidavit and Power of Attorney

3. Priority:

If the same invention (or design) has been filed with another Paris Convention country and the original filing date is asserted in the United States, the application shall be filed with the United States Patent Office within one year (including Taiwan) of the first filing date of the foreign application (or six months in the case of design).

4. Novelty requirements (first invention principle and one-year concession principle)

An invention loses its novelty if it has been patented or published in the United States or other countries, or has been publicly used or sold in the United States for more than one year; On the contrary, if not more than one year, it still has the novelty of applying for a patent.

3. Patent application approval process in the United States

The current United States Patent Law divides the patent into three kinds: invention patent, design patent and plant patent.

1. The approval process of patent application in the United States is as follows:

By the inventor or its authorized person to submit an application to the USPTO department received, determine the received date and application number is given to be determined by the forms of application department for review and filing, complete data collection, documentation and at the same time by the right department deal with rights a transfer transaction - classification - according to the classification number will be assigned to an application for review.

2. The review process mainly includes:

(1) Form review and retrieval

(2) Substantive review

(3) Responses from the applicant

(4) Review again

(5) Make the final decision, etc. → Those who are not satisfied with the decision can appeal to the Patent Appeals and Conflicts Committee.

IV. Duration of patent examination in the United States

(1) In general, a U.S. patent application will be reviewed within about one to one and a half years after the filing date.

(2) If the review committee does not accept the inclusion of new contents in the revision of schemas or specifications, it may file a partial continuous case (CIP) application, provided that the application shall be submitted before the original case is abandoned. The application date for the part with the same contents as the original case shall be the same as the original case.

V. Duration of patent protection in the United States

(1) 20 years shall be counted from the filing date of the invention patent case.

(2) 14 years from the date of the announcement of the patent case for design.

U. S. Patent Maintenance Annual Fee

(1) The annual fee for the continuation of the first, second and third patents must be paid in the third and half years, seventh and half years and eleventh and half years from the date of announcement of the invention patent case, or the patent right will be invalidated.

(2) There is no annual fee in the case of design patents.