In a patent system, a
single patent should be granted to a single invention only. It means, a single
patent should not contain multiple inventions. Therefore, if the claims contain
more than one invention, a patent examiner would raise an unity objection to
ask the applicant restrict the claimed subject matter to a single invention. In
the United States, this is called a restriction requirement.
After receiving a unity
objection, an applicant’s options are (1) drop the additional inventions in the
claims and file divisional applications for the additional inventions (2) drop
the additional inventions in the claims and abandon the additional inventions
(3) harmonize the claims to make sure they contain only one invention (4) argue
with the examiner and provide explanations why there is one or more linking inventive features shared by the
claims.
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