The parts of a patent application

A complete patent application is made up of several elements. While you can receive a filing date without sending in a complete application, it is to your advantage to make your initial application as complete and descriptive as possible. (See filing an application.)

The initial application is important because it becomes the basis for your patent. A complete application includes:

The petition is your formal request for a patent. In it you ask for a patent, list the applicant(s) and inventor(s), give the name of your patent, and identify your agent if you have one.

The statement of legal representative can be provided within the petition in Section 3 or in a separate document.

Sometimes you are also required to submit the name of a representative, a patent agent, or an associate agent. The requirement for a representative usually concerns applicants who are not living in Canada or carrying on a business here (see Section 20 and Section 29, Patent Act).

A signed small entity declaration is required from applicants who believe they qualify for the applicable small entity fee.

The following is an example of a small entity declaration that the applicant can draft for submission.

Note: If the small entity declaration is filed as part of the petition (Please see section 7 of Form 3), the petition still needs to be signed.

Example: Small entity declaration — if filed separately from the petition:

Attention: Commissioner of Patents

The [applicant/patentee — please indicate name of applicant/patentee] believes that in accordance with the Patent Rules, they are entitled to pay fees at the small entity level in respect of this application and in respect of any patent issued on the basis of this application.

[Identify the application/patent]

Signed:

Mr. or Ms. applicant/patentee or patent agent

The abstract is a short technical summary of your invention that includes a statement of the use of the invention. It is primarily used for searching purposes.
The description, together with the claims, forms the bulk of your patent application. It is here that you give a full account of your invention. The description begins with background information relevant to the invention, and describes the invention in increasing levels of detail. One of your goals in writing the description is to compose it so that someone skilled in your field would be able to reproduce your invention just from reading your description and looking at the drawings.
The claims form the legal basis for protection. You can (and probably should) have several claims for each patent. The aim here is to ensure that you make all the claims necessary to protect your invention. While some of your claims will cover individual features of your invention, others will cover broader elements.
Drawings must be included with your application, if the invention can be illustrated, so that it is easier to understand the patent. They must be legible, labelled, and referred to in the description.
If they apply to your invention, amino acid and nucleotide sequences must be included as they are considered part of the description. They must be in compliant electronic format (see Part III, Patent Rules).

If your application is made public, a cover page is added to include the basic bibliographic data about the patent application such as the title, name of the owner, application number, and filing date. If your patent is granted, then it is made up of the cover page, the abstract, the description, the claims, and the drawings.

For further details about each part of a patent application see the section on writing a patent application.

Previous
Main Page
Next