Patent

Examination process

After filing, the application goes through an examination process. Examiner would check if an application meets all the requirements. If the application has any objection then applicant is informed to respond. The final rejection is sent by the patent office. There are also opportunities for the third parties to oppose the proceedings. The third parties challenge the validity of an allowed or issued patent at the national patent office on following grounds.

• the claimed subject matter is not patentable at all;


• the claimed subject matter is not new at the time the application is filed;


• Some kind of fraud is committed during prosecution with regard to listing of inventors, representations about when discoveries were made, etc.

Patents can found to be invalid in whole or in part for any of these reasons.