Filing Date Issue : Patent Application Will Be Considered Filed on The Day When and Only When Application Documents Are Submitted in Full with All Required Amendments Submitted.

Attention, patent applicants!  Application documents and specification must be complete and submitted in full for the application to be considered filed.  TIPO is revising the relevant procedural criteria with important changes proposed on (among others) determination of filing date, how omission from application documents or specification (omitted or missing pages) should be handled, amendment made in foreign language, application without bearing applicant’s name to be considered not filed, application fee refundable on request for applications filed but not examined.

In consideration of maintaining the quality of patent applications and fairness to third parties, in case where the patent claimed is determined not sufficiently disclosed on account of an omission from the application documents, specification or drawings, the application will not be determined as filled until the day when the required amendment is made.  In other words, if an application is submitted without the application form, specification, essential drawings or illustrations, or the specification bears no description of the patent or the scope of patent claimed, or the drawing submitted bears no illustration, the application will not be considered filed and no filing date will be issued.  If the application has any page missing from the description of the patent or from the scope of the patent claimed as given in the specification, or any illustration or figuration omitted, the filing date will be the day when the relevant amendment required is made.   

Where the application is to be submitted in a foreign language, it must be submitted in the required number of copies and the issues concerning missing pages and omission will be dealt with according to a separate set of guidelines.  Also, the Chinese version supplemented must be based on the foreign language version submitted and no amendment to the foreign language documents submitted will be allowed.  Further, the application will be rejected if the applicant fails to supplement the Chinese version within the given time limit.  In case of discrepancy between the Chinese version and the foreign-language version, TIPO is required to notify the applicant to revise the Chinese version within the given time period.  Should the applicant fail to do so or the content of the Chinese version exceeds the description disclosed in the foreign-language specification (drawing) and illustration, the filing date of the application will be the day when a revised Chinese version is submitted.

If the representative drawing designated by the applicant is considered inappropriate, the examiner may re-designate or revise the representative drawing with the powers and authorities for him/her to do so.  As to the application fees issue, TIPO will return the substantive examination fee or re-examination fee if the applicant of an invention patent application requests to withdraw the application before the notice of the initial examination.  (2010.10)
/EMA