Filing a Patent/Petty Patent Application in Thailand

Patent

Under the Thai Patent law, patent will be granted for an invention that possesses novelty, inventiveness and industrial applicability.  After being granted, the patent will be in effect for a maximum period of 20 years from the filing date of the application, provided that annuity fee is timely paid. Timeline from filing a patent application to a patent being granted is shown below.

After filing a patent application, it will be examined for formality and then be published in a monthly gazette for 90 days. If there is no opposition occur during said period, the applicant can proceed with filing a request for examination within five years from the publication date. The applicant is deemed to abandon his/her application if the applicant fails to file a request for examination within the prescribed period.

Opposition (Pre-grant opposition system)

Within the 90-day publication period, anyone can file an opposition against the application on the grounds, for example, lack of novelty, lack of inventive step, lack of right to apply for a patent, etc. The opposition may be filed anonymously. It is common to take at least two years to complete the opposition process.

After the opposition period has lapsed, anyone may file documents/ evidence related to assessment of novelty / inventiveness of the underlying invention (so called a third-party observation) with the Thai Patent Office  in an attempt to inform the Examiner in charge the existing of prior art documents. However, the Examiner may or may not take the documents into consideration since there is no such stipulation in the  present Thai patent law.

Examination of a Patent Application

Thai Patent Office utilizes a so called modified examination system in examining the Thai patent applications with corresponding foreign patent applications. This means that applicants may be requested by the Examiner or may voluntarily submit any search report and/or examination results of the same invention filed with other Patent Offices and has already granted a patent in the respective country. The Thai Examiner usually choose one of the examination results that he/she deems to be reasonable (usually patent that has been granted with a set of narrowest scope of the allowed claims) and will grant a patent based on the allowed claims, provided that the allowed claims are not contrary to the Thai law. The claims must be modified so as to conform to the Thai law before a patent will be granted.
The examination results from six major patent offices, i.e. USPTO, EPO, JPO, SIPO (China Patent Office), KIPO (Korean Intellectual Property Office), and Australia Patent Office are usually accepted. 
Some other regional cooperation or bi-lateral cooperation, such as ASPEC, and PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway) Pilot program between JPO and  Thai DIP are also accepted.
Currently there is approximately 100 Thai examiners and normally it will take more than five years from filing date until a patent is granted 
 

Petty Patent

Petty Patent (known as utility model in other country) is registered if the underlying invention is new and industrially applicable. The registered petty patent will be published after it has passed a formality check and an issue fee is paid.

Typically, it will take at least one year when a first Office action to be issued. 

The maximum term of protection for a petty patent is 10 years. 

 

Note

Generally a petty patent will be registered quicky for it is not required to be undergone a lengthy examination process like that of the patent application. This makes Petty patent a good choice for protecting a product having a sizable market value but with a short life cycle, perhaps a minor changed version of an already-existing product that need to be quickly launch to the market. Also one should be well aware that the petty patent right is pretty insecure as it is not yet examined by the Patent Office.

Examination of a Petty patent

Within one year from the publication date of the registered petty patent, any interested person (including the applicant himself) can file an examination request with the Patent Office. The petty patent may be revoked if it is found that the underlying invention is not new or industrially applicable.