Intellectual Property Office examiners examine whether an applied patent (specifically, the claims that claim rights) meets the requirements for granting a patent set forth in the Patent Act (novelty, non-obviousness, etc.). The examiner will send a non-final rejection opinion to the patent applicant stating that the patent cannot be granted because the applied-for patent is not novel over the prior art (preceding patents or prior non-patent literature) (lack of novelty) or is obvious (obviousness). If the applicant's comments or amendments (corrections) do not resolve the lack of novelty and obviousness of the applied patent, the examiner will notify the applicant of a final rejection.
Patent rejection data is data that arises during the examination of an applied patent. Patent rejection data essentially includes i) the patent application being examined, ii) the preceding patents/non-patent literature, iii) the reason for the rejection (lack of novelty, obviousness), iv) the date of the rejection opinion, etc.
The example below is a notice (office action, OA) issued by an examiner of the United States of America Intellectual Property Office upon examination of Apple's 16/258,431 patent, stating that claims 1 (independent claims), 8, 12, 14, 17, and 20 of the patent are unpatentable under Section 102 of the U.S. Patent Act (lack of novelty) because of the preceding patent, Seoul Viosys' 2015/0125355 patent, and are therefore ineligible for patent issuance.
In the example below, an examiner of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), upon examination of Apple's patent 10-2018-7034636, notified (office action, OA) that the patent is unpatentable due to the preceding patent, Harex Infotech's patent 10-2001-0090485, and cannot be issued for patent issuance under Article 29-2 (non-obviousness) of the Korean Patent Act.
An examiner sends a first non-final rejection opinion to a patent applicant stating that a patent cannot be granted because the applied-for patent is not novel over the prior art (preceding patents or prior non-patent literature) (lack of novelty) or is obvious (obviousness). If, in response to the examiner's notice of reasons for rejection, the applicant's comments or amendments (corrections) do not cure the lack of novelty and obviousness of the applied patent, the examiner will notify the applicant of a final rejection.