What Exactly A Child Patent Application Is And Its Types?

A join to a previously filed patent application is a child patent application. The application that was filed first is considered to be the parent. While the application that was filed later is known to be the child. To request a patent that represents a different version of the invention. Or one that offers more protection than the parent, one must file a child application to the Patent Office.

Three Types of Child Applications

There are three types of child applications:

1. Continuation – a patent application that builds on the previously disclosed invention. Or adds more variations to it without modifying the invention’s key principles. used to provide more security than what the parent provided.
2. Continuation in Part – a patent application that covers extra features or variations of an invention that were not publicly revealed in the parent patent application.  Used to cover a new version of your invention.
3. Divisional – A patent application that claims a modification of the invention that the Patent Office denied in the original parent patent application. Used to protect a version of your innovation that the Patent Office prohibited you from securing a patent for in the original form.

Continuation Child Patent Application

Consider creating a time machine that is contained within a car, van, or bus. You have three different versions. You do not request a patent for the van or bus modifications of your time machine; just the truck model is covered. Your time machine patent for the truck model has been approved by the Patent Office.

 You now want to get patents for your invention’s van and bus variants as well. If the Patent Office will award you patents for the van and bus modifications of your invention, you could file renewal applications for those modifications datatypes you file for the van and bus versions would be the children applications, and the truck version patent would be the parent. Trying to include both the van and bus types in a continuing application is another option.

A larger continuing application that would include all vehicle types might be a solution. For instance, you may remove the condition that the time machine be put into any particular type of vehicle and instead allow the time machine to be built into any form of vehicle as a truck, a van, and a bus are all considered to be vehicles.

A continuation application may be used to request a patent that covers another several varieties, a patent that covers a larger version of your invention, or a patent covering a second variation of your innovation. The main restriction on continuation applications is that no new information can be introduced that was not previously present in the parent application.

Continuation in Part Application

Consider creating a time machine that is placed within a car, van, or bus. You have three various versions. Imagine you receive patents for all three types from the US Patent Office. You later create a time machine that is connected into a plane, though. When the parent application was submitted, you had not yet created the plane version.

The time machine that is connected into a plane may then be applied for on behalf of a child. This child application is referred to as a continuing in part because the aircraft version includes both details that were disclosed in the parent application and features that were created after the parent application was submitted.

Divisional Child Patent Application

Consider creating a time machine that is connected into a bus, truck, or van. Three changes have been made. You request some all patent from the patent office. In place of the van or bus version, the Patent Office decides it will only grant you a patent for the truck version. You must submit separate patent applications for the van and bus versions, according to the Patent Office. So you may submit separate child applications for the van and bus variants for the Patent Office to examine.

Child applications must be registered before the parent application is granted or abandoned

Only before the previously submitted parent application is approved as a patent or is cancelled as a result of being rejected by the patent office may a child application be submitted. You still have time to react if your parent application is rejected before it is cancelled. Before to the parent application becoming abandoned, a child application must be submitted. You have time until it is produced and granted as a patent if your parent application is approved. Before the parent application is approved as a patent, a child application must be submitted.

The use of child applications expands the scope of your patent protection. To decide what kind of child application to submit and when to file it, great planning is required. Talk to a patent attorney anytime you create a new version of your idea, as well as when your patent application is about to be lost or approved because a child application needs to be submitted before that.