Czech national patent prosecution

Full examination of patent application

The Office shall carry out a full examination of the invention application to ensure that it meets the conditions for granting a patent laid down by regulations. The full examination of an invention application shall be carried out by the Office at the request of the applicant or of another person or may be carried out ex officio.

The request for full examination shall be filed within 36 months as from the filing date of the invention application and may not be withdrawn. The person filing the request shall be required, on submitting the request, to pay an administrative fee in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions.The Office shall carry out the full examination immediately after the request has been filed. Where no request for full examination of an invention application has been duly filed or where the Office has not carried out an ex officio examination, the Office shall terminate the procedure concerning the application.

If the conditions for granting a patent have not been met, the Office shall reject the invention application. The applicant shall be given the possibility of submitting observations on the documents on the basis of which the decision on the application is to be taken before rejection. If the applicant does not remedy a defect constituting a bar to the granting of a patent within the given time limit, the Office shall terminate the procedure concerning the application. The attention of the applicant shall be drawn to such consequence of failure to comply when the time limit is stipulated.

If the subject-matter of the invention application satisfies the stipulated conditions and if the applicant has paid the fee laid down in the relevant statutory provisions, the Office shall grant a patent to the applicant who shall thereupon become the proprietor of the patent. The Office shall issue to the proprietor of the patent letters patent in which the name of the inventor shall be mentioned, the description of the invention and the claims shall form an integral part of the letters patent, a notice of the grant of the patent shall be published in the Official Bulletin. If more than one invention application relating to the same subject-matter is filed, only one patent can be granted.

If the full examination of the application for an invention was initiated at the request of a person other than the applicant, or if it was initiated ex officio, the Office shall inform the applicant of this fact. If several persons independently of each other request a full examination of the application for an invention the Office shall initiate the full examination on the basis of the request which arrived first. The Office shall inform persons who filed such requests later of this fact.

Excluded Applications for an Invention

If the Office ascertains that the application for an invention does not comply with the requirements of the Law, it shall invite the applicant to remedy this defect within a set time

limit. Excluded applications for an invention possess the priority right of the original application if the applicant files them within 3 months after remedying the defect from the original application. The applicant may also divide the application for an invention up to the date of grant of patent, in his own initiative. If the application is excluded or divided after initiation of the full examination in accordance with the Law, the excluded application shall be deemed to be an application for which a request was filed for full examination. In the case of an excluded application, the applicant shall be obliged to pay administrative fees corresponding to the state of procedure on the original application at the time of its exclusion.

Patent application

The patent granting procedure shall begin with the filing with the Office of an invention application.

An application shall relate to one invention only or to a group of inventions so linked as to form a single general inventive concept. Where a group of inventions is claimed in one and the same patent application, the requirement of unity of invention shall be fulfilled only when there is a technical relationship among those inventions involving one or more of the same or corresponding special technical features. The expression „special technical features“ shall mean those features, which define a contribution, which each of the claimed inventions considered as a whole makes the prior art.

The invention must be disclosed in the invention application in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art. Where the invention concerns an industrial microorganism for the purposes of production, the microorganism must be kept in a public collection as from the date on which the applicant’s priority right begins.

Where there is a doubt, the Office may invite the applicant to provide evidence of the applicability of the invention by producing the subject-matter of the application or in some other appropriate manner. If the applicant is unable to furnish such evidence, the subject-matter of the application shall be deemed not to have applicability.

The priority right of the applicant shall begin with the filing of the application.

The priority right under the Paris Convention must already be claimed by the applicant in his application if invited to do so by the Office, the applicant must furnish evidence of his right within the stipulated time limit, otherwise the priority right shall not be taken into consideration.

The priority right can be claimed, if the invention application has been filed in the state or for the state, which is party to the Paris Convention or a member of the World Trade Organization. If the state, where the first filing of the invention application is made, is neither a party of the Paris Convention, nor a member of the World Trade Organisation, the priority right can only be granted under condition of the reciprocity.

Preliminary examination of the invention application

All the invention applications shall be subject to a preliminary examination carried out by the Office in order to find whether the application contains no element that is obviously contrary to the provisions.

The Office shall reject the invention application if it contains an element contrary to the provisions. The applicant shall be given an opportunity to make observations on the documents on the basis of which the decision has been taken, prior to rejection. If an invention application contains an element that constitutes a bar to its publication or if the applicant has not paid the corresponding administrative fee, the Office shall invite the applicant to submit his observations and to remedy any deficiencies within the set up time limit. If the applicant does not remedy the deficiencies in the invention application constituting a bar to its publication or does not pay the corresponding administrative fee within the stipulated time limit, the Office shall terminate the procedure. The attention of the applicant shall be drawn to such consequence.

The Office shall publish an invention application on expiry of a period of 18 months as from the date on which the priority right begins and shall announce the publication in the Official Bulletin.

An invention application may be published before expiry of the time limit laid down in national regulations at the request submitted by the applicant within 12 months from the date on which the priority right begins and on payment of the administrative fee laid down in the relevant regulations. The Office shall publish an invention application before expiry of the period 1 if a patent has already been granted for the invention. However, if the proprietor of the patent does not give his consent, the Office shall not publish the application before expiry of 12 months as from the date on which the priority right begins.

Together with the invention application, the Office may publish a report on the state of the art (search report) relating to an invention claimed in the application.

Observation of the third party

Following publication of an invention application, any person may submit observations on the patentability of the subject-matter; the Office shall take such observations into consideration when carrying out the full examination of the application. Persons who have submitted observations shall not become party to the procedure with respect to the application. However, the applicant shall be informed of any observations submitted.