Divisional application

An application containing several independent inventions must be divided. The divisional application(s) will then have the same filing date as the original application, known as the 'parent application'. 

According to Section 10 of the Patent Act, a patent application may not contain several applications that are independent of each other. If you file an application which, on the date of filing, covers several independent inventions, the application is considered to be non-unified.

You will then have to choose which of the inventions you want to proceed with in the patent application and the others will have to be removed. If you wish, you can include the redundant inventions in one or more divisional applications, in the same way as described above. The first, original patent application is then said to be a parent application for the new, divisional applications. In this way, you will also be able to benefit from the date of submission of the parent application.

Date of submission of the divisional application

A divisional application will have the same submission date as the original application. Any priority is also included.

Here you can read more about priority

We treat a divisional application as a new application, which means, for example, that you must pay an application fee for it. We process the parent application and the divisional application independently.

Remember to submit your divisional application before your parent application is finalised. This means that the parent application must not have been granted and published in the Swedish Patent Gazette. This also means that the time for reopening or appealing after a dismissal or rejection must not have expired.

Break-out application

If you add something of substance that was not in the application on the date of filing, you must delete the information again.

If what you add can constitute an invention in itself, you can break out the new invention and make it the subject of a separate application, a so-called break-out application. The break-out application is considered to have been made on the day you made the addition to the parent application.

This means that your own parent application can become an obstacle to your break-out application. If the addition is made before the parent application becomes public, it is sufficient that what you have added is new in relation to the parent application, so that it does not prevent your new application.

If the addition is made after the parent application has been made public, the invention in your divisional application must also have inventive step in comparison to the invention in the parent application.