After a patent
application is filed, it is normally not immediately examined. In US and
Canada, only after a patent application is published 18 months after its filing
date, it is started to be examined. During the patent examination, a patent
examiner tries to find all defects of a patent application regarding all
patentability aspects, including novelty, obviousness, subject matter,
enablement, utility, indefiniteness, etc., which results in an office report
(“action”). After receiving an office action, applicant may argue against the
objections in the report, amend the claims and or the specification to make the
objections moot, or abandon the application all together.
Eventually, the patent
application is either allowed to become a patent, or abandoned without any
patent rights.
The process of patent
examination is often called patent prosecution.
Prior Art
All publicly-available
information before the priority date, or filing date if priority is not
claimed, of a patent application is called prior art. During patent
prosecutions, documents in prior art are often cited against patent
applications regarding novelty or obviousness purposes. Note that documents
disclosed by the inventor(s) in the grace period is not citable and not
considered to be part of the prior art.
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