Limiting claims
12.27.
A factor contributing to the complexity of patent litigation is the number of claims in the patent. Any system which reduces the complexity of litigation is preferable as it makes petty patents more certain. The main justification for having a petty patent system is that petty patents are quick and inexpensive to obtain. They should also be as simple to litigate as possible. Therefore the number of claims should be limited.
Speed of grant
12.28.
A fundamental objective of any petty patent system is that petty patents should be granted quickly. Indeed, we consider that the grant should take place as soon as possible after six months from the date of application. For this reason, there should be a limit on the time allowed for applicants to file relevant documents. In particular, where priority is claimed from another filing, there should be a limit on the time between the application for the petty patent and the submission of the document from which priority is claimed. The Paris Convention prescribes that at least 3 months must be allowed for this process. Furthermore, if the filing of a search report before grant is required, a time limit for doing so should also be imposed.
Filing
12.33
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Publication
12.29.
Publication should occur immediately after grant. Publication will entail laying the petty patent open to public inspection together with a notice of the grant in the relevant government publication which in Hong Kong is the Government Gazette.
12.30.
In the interests of the dissemination of technical information it is important that the invention be disclosed adequately to the public. The inclusion of the entire petty patent specification in the Gazette may not be justified, but the abstract together with the first claim can give a good indication of the invention and be sufficiently short to be so included without inconvenience. The information in the abstract also gives enough information to allow interested parties to decide whether to search the file itself.
12.31.
As technical information is increasingly found in electronic databases, dissemination of the information is encouraged if it can be converted conveniently into that form. Database compilers will find it much easier to take the information from the Gazette than from the separate files in the Registry.
Deferred grant and publication
12.32.
The issue of whether to allow deferred grant and publication, and if so, for how long, affects the speed of grant. We consider that a right to defer publication should be given, so that an applicant who is unable for any reason to claim priority from the Hong Kong application can file subsequent applications outside Hong Kong without risking the novelty of those applications. There is no need to prescribe this in the registration system we have proposed for full patents because the application will have been published already in the EPO, but it is important where there is original grant for petty patents.
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