JOINT INTERVIEW PROGRAM FOR RELATED INVENTION PATENT APPLICATIONS (PART II)

Wei-Ting Chou, Patent Director, Patent Group I

ˇ˝ Master of Agricultural Engineering, National Taiwan University

ˇ˝ Bachelor of Medical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University

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6. The procedures to petition for the program

6.1 The Applicant should submit the documents mentioned in Item 5 to express the intention to petition for the joint interview with the Office.  If the documents for the petition are not complete, the Office will issue a Notification to inform the Applicant to submit the complete ones by a deadline.  If there is still incompleteness by the deadline, the group of applications will be reverted to the regular examination procedures, where the Office will not issue a notice to this effect.

6.2 The Office will inform by telephone that the group of related invention patent applications has reverted to the regular examination procedures if:

(1) any of the applications does not comply with the requirements in Item 4; or

(2) the number of applications is not within the limit described in Item 3 (however, the Examiner can still determine whether the number of applications is acceptable or not depending on the extent to which they are technically related).

6.3 If the mentioned requirements are met, the Examiner will contact the Applicant within one month after the documents are complete to arrange a time and place to hold the joint interview.  This schedule will be issued with a written notification.

6.4 In the joint interview, the Applicant should introduce the technical schemes and the claims in each application, and explain why each claim has patentability.

6.5 In principle, the Office will issue an Examination Notification within three months after the joint interview or after the deadline as specified in the joint interview, within which the Applicant submits a response and/or amendments within.

7. Note:

7.1 The Examiner ex officio notifies the Applicant, according to his intent and the stipulations in Rule 2 in the Guidelines for the Interview for a Patent Application, to participate in the joint interview for the group of related invention patent applications.

7.2 After completing the joint interview for the group of related invention patent applications, if any application therein is to be withdrawn, the Office will permit the withdrawal without returning the official fee for the substantive examination therefor.

8. Supplementary provisions:

If there is any deficiency which cannot be made up by this program, the relevant stipulations in the ˇ§Operational Guidelines for the Interview for a Patent Application at the TIPOˇ¨ may be applicable mutatis mutandis.

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