A search report is a document prepared by a patent office to determine if an invention claimed in a patent application is original. The report lists documents related to the invention and allows the applicant to decide whether to proceed with the application.
A search report is a research document prepared by a patent office in response to a patent application, in order to determine whether the invention claimed in the application is patentable. The search uses any information available in any form that may be relevant to the claim of originality of the patent application. If the patent claimed in the application was described in the previous work of another, it is not patentable.
A patent examiner conducts a search of the invention as outlined in the application and the final results are contained in a search report issued to the applicant and filed with the Patent Office. The patent examiner searches for documents worldwide. In patent searches, patent specifications are classified according to the subject of the invention. Patent specifications that have appeared in any technical journal or on the Internet are compared with those in the application. The research seeks evidence that the technical characteristics of the applicant’s invention are already known.
There are three categories of search results within a research report. The first category lists documents that contain the central feature of the applicant’s invention. The second lists the documents that contain technical information similar to that of the application but are not used for inventive purposes. The third lists documents about what has been done in other areas of the applicant’s invention but do not match the applicant’s claims for what his invention does.
Typically, all related patent claims are sought before the Patent Office sends a report to the applicant. Claims sought containing two or more inventions are limited to including the first claim for reporting purposes. Sometimes an applicant’s claim for what his or her invention will do is not clear in relation to other claims, or there are so many similar claims that they cannot all be reported. In these cases, the claims sought are not included in the search report, but the patent office provides an explanatory letter to the applicant.
The search report allows the applicant to decide whether his invention is unique enough from the documents sought to be patentable. An applicant can withdraw his application if he so wishes. He must do this before preparations for publishing the report are complete. In case of failure to submit the timely notice of withdrawal of the application, this will be published together with the report. The publication takes place approximately 18 months after the filing of the application.
If after reviewing the report, the applicant wishes to proceed with his application, he must request a “substantive review” of his application. This involves a more rigorous and detailed examination of the patent application and its supporting documents. The request for revision on the merits must be submitted within six months of the publication of the patent application.
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