Under United States patent law, a continuing patent application is a patent application which follows, and claims priority to, an earlier filed patent application.
A continuing patent application may be one of three types: a continuation, divisional, or continuation-in-part application. While continuation and continuation-in-part applications are generally available in the U.S. only, divisional patent applications are also available in other countries, as such availability is required under Article 4G of the Paris Convention.
Read more about Continuing Patent Application: Early History, Current Law in The U.S., Controversy Around Attempted Changes By USPTO To Continuation Practice
Famous quotes containing the words continuing, patent and/or application:
“Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)