FILING

1. Prepare the description of your invention ( with drawings) DESCRIPTION OF YOUR INVENTION
2. Discuss your material with Patent Hatchery ( we can sign NDA if needed, however our profession assumes confidentiality)
3. Develop strategy, which includes

(a) filing/not filing U.S. provisional application; prov-application

(b) performing patent search and patentability analysis; PATENT SEARCH

(c) filing U.S. nonprovisional application; NONPROVISIONAL APPL

(d) filing PCT application; PCT process

(e) filing National stage for your PCT application; NATIONAL STAGE

(f) filing design patent application; DESIGN APPLICATION

(g) filing Copyright application for your software in addition to patent application for the algorithm. SOFTWAREprotection

4. Additional options:

1. filing petition for PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway) program, which is a request to issue U.S. patent based on the positive decision on your National patent application in your country; PATENT PROSECUTION HIGHWAY
2. Filing a petition on accelerated examination based on the age of one of inventors (>65 y.o.); PRIORITIZED EXAMINATION
3. Filing a petition on fast track examination with paying a fee PRIORITIZED EXAMINATION

5. Translation services TRANSLATION SERVICES
6. Financial agreement

(a) choosing entity type to select the fee LEGAL ENTITY

(b) payment schedule PAYMENT SCHEDULE

( c) USPTO fees USPTO fees

4. PCT application fees PCT FEES

This completes the patent application procedure and the patent application is awaiting its examination.

The waiting depends on the type of application and on the technical field. Regular waiting time is about 3 years, while it is about 1 year for accelerated prosecution.

Waiting time for design applications is much shorter, and it is about 1 year.

EXAMINATION

7. In many case we get RESTRICTION REQUIREMENT as a first Office Action. Response has to be submitted. RESTRICTION REQUIREMENT
8. The examiner examines your application? Which results in the allowance, partial allowance or rejection.

1. in case of allowance, we review the case and propose two options
   1. simply issue the patent PATENT ISSUE
   2. file a continuing application prior to the issue, and then issue the patent CONTINUING APPLICATION
2. in case of partial allowance:
   1. agree with the examiner and amend the claims to get a limited patent allowed
   2. disagree with the examiner and provide an Office Action response in order to get full patent OFFICE ACTION RESPONSE
3. in case of rejection:
   1. disagree with the examiner and provide an Office Action response in order to get full or partial allowance OFFICE ACTION RESPONSE
   2. agree with the examiner and file an improved version of the patent application to overcome the rejection; CONTINUING APPLICATION
   3. agree with the examiner and abandon the application.

ISSUE

We submit the issue fee and accompanying documents. PATENT ISSUE

MAINTENANCE

For US patents you have to pay maintenance fee every 4 years – three times total. PATENT MAINTENANCE