In This Chapter

If your patent application passes initial muster, it will be assigned to the appropriate examining group and then to an examiner within the USPTO. Patent applications are handled in the order they’re received.

The application examination inspects for compliance with the legal requirements and includes a search through U.S. patents, prior foreign patent documents that are available in the USPTO, and available literature—magazines, newspapers, doctoral dissertations, and so on—to ensure that your invention is new. The examiner then reaches a decision based on the study and the search results.

After a visit to the USPTO, Don Coster of the Nevada Inventor Association observed: “Our patent applications go through a process that is so thorough and so efficient that it is hard to believe unless you see it in action. The application does not go directly to an examiner. It must first be examined for content and completeness. The drawings are checked and screened for things like military sensitivity or unlawful usage. Once accepted as legal and complete, ^[the application_] is classified for the proper art group. This is very critical. If the wrong examiner ends up with it on his or her table, it might be months before he or she even gets a first look at it because applications are taken in the order that they’re received …. Those people are so conscientious that it rarely ever happens.”