Argentina
New Disposition for filing of Divisional Patent Applications
On July 15th, 2010, Disposition 147/2010 will enter into force, which rules the filing of divisional patent applications and limits considerably the possibility of filing such applications.
The most important items in this disposition are:
- Applicants may split their applications until they receive the first substantial examination report;
- Once substantial examination has been started, if the examiner verifies that the application lacks unity of invention or that the application is a complex one, he will request the applicant to split the application within the term of 30 days;
- In all cases, the parent application must not have been granted at the moment a divisional application is filed;
- To file a divisional application (c), which is the divisional application of an application (b), which itself is the divisional application of another application (a), it is necessary that the parent application (a) has not yet been granted.
The Argentine Patent Attorney Association (AAAPI) is preparing a very strong letter of complaint to the Argentine Patent Office arguing that this new rule is unconstitutional because of many reasons, one of them being that no rule can be applied in a retroactive way.
So it is expected that the Argentine Patent Office will have to modify the original ruling.
07.2010
