The patent application process begins by filing a provisional or nonprovisional patent application in the patent office of at least one country or other geographic region. Once the underlying idea has been refined, the patent application can be prepared by the patent applicant alone or with the assistance of a patent practitioner to provide the detailed description of the complete system, method, substance or product for which the patent is to be sought. A nonprovisional patent application must also include one or more claims that define the subject matter for which patent protection is being sought.
In due course, the patent office will initiate examination of the nonprovisional patent application. Once substantive examination begins, the patent office will conduct a search for patent documents and other publications that predate the nonprovisional patent application and that bear upon the patentability of the application claims. The patent office then compares the application claims with the search results and issues an official communication with an opinion regarding the patentability of the application claims.
The official communication can reject at least one claim as being unpatentable in view of the search results and/or indicate that at least one claim is patentable. For a rejected application claim, the patent applicant can respond to the official communication by amending the rejected application claim and/or arguing that the search results do not bear upon the patentability of the rejected application claim. Substantive examination of the patent application continues through additional communication exchanges between the applicant and the patent office until at least one application claims is deemed allowable or prosecution of the patent application is otherwise terminated.