In general, there is no time limit for filing a short-term patent application in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the Hong Kong SAR). But if you wish to claim priority from a first application in a Paris Convention country or World Trade Organization member, you should file your short-term patent application in the Hong Kong SAR within 12 months of filing the first application.
If your invention has been disclosed and you claim that the disclosure does not prejudice your invention's novelty (section 109, Patents Ordinance) you should file your short-term patent application within 6 months of the disclosure.
You need to provide documents and information for your patent application.
You need to pay a filing fee and an advertisement fee within one month after the earliest filing of any part of your application.
You can ask the registry to defer the grant of your short-term patent. Deferring grant will give you more time to obtain a search report from a prescribed searching authority. Grant can be deferred for a maximum of twelve months after the filing date of the short-term patent application.
Upon receipt of your request form (Form P6), we will issue a receipt notifying you of the alloted application number.
We will give your short-term patent application a filing date when:
If we have given your application a filing date, we will examine your application and give you notice to correct any deficiencies within two months.
If there is no deficiency or the deficiencies are corrected, we will grant a short-term patent for the invention. We will publish details of the granted patent and advertise the grant in the Hong Kong Intellectual Property Journal.