Patent applications filed with IPONZ are normally required to be placed in order for acceptance within 12 months of the date that their first examination report is issued. This is known as the “Section 71 deadline”, after Section 71 of the Patents Act 2013, with reference to Regulation 80 of the Patents Regulations 2014.
In response to feedback received at the recent Patents Technical Focus Group meeting, IPONZ is changing the way by which a task due date is set as a patent application approaches its Section 71 deadline.
Following the change, whenever an examination report is issued for a patent application that is within 4 months of its Section 71 deadline, the normal three-month deadline for response will no longer be displayed. Instead, the Section 71 deadline will act as the deadline for response to the examination report.
More details on our updated practices may be found on the IPONZ website