USE provides ways to make a patent for employees or students:
- Presentation of the application, which will contain an instance addressed to the director of the OEPM (Spanish Patent and Trademark Office), a description of the invention, one or several claims, drawings and a summary. The date these documents are presented is considered the DATE OF SUBMISSION of the application. This is important as it marks the beginning of the priority period and marks the period until the novelty is demanded.
- Examination of the patent application, in two areas:
- Formal examination: verification that the data of the instance, memories in triplicate on paper of A4 format, that are typed and printed, that each document starts on a new sheet, margins, numbering of lines, etc.
- Technical examination: verification of description, claims, summary, and drawings that the object of the application is patentable and does not incur in prohibitions.
- Report on the State of the Technique (EIT), upon request by the patent owner, whereby the SPTO proceeds to study the novelty and inventive step of the invention that is the subject of the application.
The EIT request must be made in writing within 15 months of the date of submission.
- Publication of the application and the EIT, once the EIT has been prepared, the OEPM will announce in the Official Release of Industrial Property (BOPI) the publication of it. The law requires that the publication of any request must be made before 18 months of the date of presentation.
- Observation of third parties, two-month period for any person to make duly reasoned and documented observations to the EIT. This term begins to be counted from the date of publication in the BOPI.
- Reply to third-party observations, new period of two months, following the third-party observations period, by which the holder can submit the observations he considers pertinent to the EIT, as well as the comments submitted by third parties and submit the changes to the claims.
- Resolution of the file, once the previous term has expired, the OEPM proceeds to the granting of the requested patent, with an announcement in the BOPI, making the patent document together with the EIT and all the observations and comments concerning the report available to the public
The granted patent has a duration of 20 years from the date of presentation. http://stce.us.es/web/es/HTML/PyP/PyP-aptdo1.php