What You Need to Know About Continuation-In-Part (CIP) Patent Applications
If you need to record an enhancement to an invention that was featured in an earlier application, then you can choose to file a divisional patent application, a continuation-in-part (CIP) patent application or a continuation application. Patent of addition applications (present in New Zealand, Australia, and India) and divisional applications (available in China and Europe) bear similarities to CIP applications. However, in this blog post we focus on highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of the CIP application available in the U.S.
The CIP patent application features new innovations related to the original (parent) application and is filed after it. Previously filed claims in the CIP patent application have the priority date of the parent application and claims that disclose new subject matter have a different priority date. If your invention has other embodiments, then your best bet is to file a CIP patent application to protect it better, which also strengthens your overall IP strategy.
What is the right time to file a CIP patent application?
A CIP patent application must be filed before the patenting, abandonment, or termination of proceedings for the parent application. The best time to file a CIP patent application is before you publicly disclose the parent application.
What are the benefits of a CIP patent application?
- Lower patent prosecution costs — By filing a CIP patent application, you can reduce filing fees as you are combining old and new disclosures in one patent application. So you can avoid filing parallel applications (completely new patent applications) and keep adding improvements or new embodiments to the original application while the prosecution is ongoing.
- Reduced patent management costs — Since you are not filing different patent applications for every new improvement in the invention but condensing your portfolio to one series of patent applications, it reduces the number of patents for a particular technology. Since there are fewer patents to manage, you will need to pay less patent maintenance fees in the future.
- Addition of new subject matter — With a CIP, you can add new subject matter in the patent to support features of the claims or improve the original subject matter. To support the claims, you can further modify the existing description or add information to describe new subject matter.
What are the drawbacks of a CIP patent application?
- Shorter patent term — A CIP patent application claims priority to the parent application. So even if the CIP patent application was filed 5 years later than the parent application, it will have the same expiry date as that of the parent application.
Find out more on: The drawbacks of a CIP patent application and how you can search for CIP, divisional (DIV), and continuation (CON) applications in PatSeer.
