Patent Application Ireland : Irish Patents Office

Organization : Irish Patents Office – Intellectual Property (IP)
Type of Facility : Patent Application
Country: Ireland

Website : http://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/patents.aspx

Patent Application :

A patent confers upon its holder, for a limited period, the right to exclude others from exploiting (making, using, selling, importing) the patented invention, except with the consent of the owner of the patent.

Related : Irish Patents Office Trade Mark Searching Ireland : www.statusin.org/9372.html

A patent is a form of ‘industrial property’, which can be assigned, transferred, licensed or used by the owner.

Patents are territorial, in effect e.g. an Irish patent is only valid in Ireland.

What is Patentable?:
In order to be eligible for the grant of a valid patent the invention must be new, involve an inventive step and be capable of industrial application.

Novelty:
An invention is considered new if it does not form part of the state of the art. The state of the art comprises everything made available to the public in any way, anywhere in the world, before the date of filing of the patent application.

Inventive step:
An invention is considered as involving an inventive step if it is not obvious to a person skilled in that area of technology, having regard to the state of the art.

Industrial applicability:
The invention must be capable of being made or used in some kind of industry, including agriculture.

How to apply for a patent:
A patent application consists of:
** A request for the grant of a patent (completing the application Form No.1 is
** sufficient to comply with this requirement).
** A specification containing a description of the invention, one or more claims defining the matter for which protection is sought and any drawings needed for the disclosure.
** An abstract containing a summary of the matter contained in the specification.
** The application must be accompanied by the appropriate application fee.

Who may apply for a patent?:
Any person may make an application for a patent; the right to a patent belongs to the inventor or the inventors’ successor in title. However, if an employee makes an invention in the course of his/her employment the right to the patent may belong to the employer. An application may be filed by joint applicants.

For applicants who wish to file a patent application directly with the Patents Office the Patent Application Guide 2013 (0.33 MB, Adobe PDF)** provides guidance on how to complete a patent application, including how to draft specifications, claims, drawings and abstracts.

Patent law and practice, and the drafting of the specification, describing an invention, are complex matters, for which the help of a patent agent is very advisable, unless the applicant has had specialised training in this field.

The Patents Office cannot advise applicants as to choice of agent. A list of registered patent agents is available at http://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/patents_agents.aspx.

Where a patent agent is appointed by an applicant, all enquiries should be directed to that agent and all official communications from the Patents Office are with the appointed agent.

Divisional patent application:
Applications disclosing more than one invention are said to lack “unity of invention” Where this happens, the applicant must remove all the subject matter that does not relate to the first invention. However, such subject matter may be “divided out” into new patent applications for each such invention. These “divisional applications” keep the filing date of the original application, but are otherwise examined as applications in their own right.

Scope of patent application:
Once the application has been filed, the specification may not be amended in any way that extends the scope of the subject matter. While it is possible to to edit a specification – perhaps in the interests of better expressing something that is present from the start, or removing subject matter which the applicant no longer wishes to be part of the protected invention – anything that adds in a substantive way to the original filing will be refused.

Minimum requirements for a Filing Date:
It is possible to secure a filing date without a fully completed patent application, as long as each of the following is submitted:
1. A indication that a patent is sought
2. Information identifying the applicant
3. A description of the invention

The requirements at 1. and 2. above can be satisfied by completing Form No. 1

An application made without using Form No. 1 will have to be followed by a formally completed application. Please note that no additional subject matter should be added to the application beyond that contained in the original filing.

Every application must be accompanied by the prescribed filing fee. The prescribed filing fee must be paid within one month from the date of filing.

If a patent application does not comply with a requirement of the Act or the Rules the applicant is given an opportunity to meet that requirement within certain time limits e.g. a period of 12 months from the date of filing (or if priority has been claimed, from the date of priority) is prescribed for the filing of the claims and abstract.

The consequence of non-compliance with time limits is that the application may be refused or deemed withdrawn. Please note certain time limits are absolute.

Format of a Patent Application:
A patent application comprises of a completed application form entitled “Request for the Grant of a Patent” of Schedule II of the Patents (Amendment) Rules 2009 (Form No.1) and a specification.

The Specification:
The specification should be in conformity with the requirements of the Patents Act 1992 and Patents Rules 1992, typed or printed on single sided A4 pages with margins of 2 to 3 centimetres. These margins should be blank, and each page should be numbered. Two copies of the specification must be submitted.

The specification provides the technical information about the invention, and provides its legal definition. It has four components, presented in the order in which they should occur in an application:
** The title,
** A description of the invention,
** Claims, and
** Drawings, if relevant to the application.

The Title:
This comes first in the specification. It should be brief, but must clearly indicate the matter to which the invention relates. The same title should appear both on the specification and the request for grant form.