Patent: How long after the filing of the patent will it be granted? And in the case that it cannot be granted, after how long will we be advised of this?

How long after the filing of the patent will it be granted? And in the case that it cannot be granted, after how long will we be advised of this?

The regulation does not stipulate an actual length of time within which a patent can be granted; it all depends on the type of application and on the workload of the examiner who will have to assess the same. First of all, the time can vary a lot depending on whether the patent application is Italian, European, or filed in a foreign country, as each administration follows its own procedures and the periods of time of examination are very different.

Supposing that the application we refer to, is Italian, normally a patent for an invention is granted within approximately two years, whilst if it is an application for registering a model, the length of time goes up to five years. In any case, the rights of the patent start from time of filing the application and not from the time of granting it. Often, not holding the definitive patent could create some problems, which is why there is always a very high interest in getting it. Even though it may seem strange, the length of time to get notified that the patent would not be granted is exactly the same.

In fact, until the application is examined, there is no way of knowing if it would be approved or rejected, therefore the time would be two years (invention) or five years (model), before which there would be no absolute certainty if the patent has been approved or not. It is entirely untrue, as sometimes they say, that in the field of patent there is a sort of “silence- consent”, meaning after a certain period of time, not having received communications to the contrary, the patent is approved. In truth, the only way of knowing if it has been granted or not is when a written notification, one way or the other, has been received.