The majority of granted US patents received at least one rejection first
You received a USPTO The examiner’s formal notice that your application cannot be granted as filed and what you must answer. Not a final refusal, a lawsuit, or a verdict on your invention’s value.We know what that means.
Upload the Office Action and we tell you what it says, which grounds of rejection it contains, and when your reply is due.
I have twelve pages of legal language and no idea how serious this is.
That reaction is the normal one, and the document is written in a way that causes it. An Office Action puts the examiner’s legal conclusions, the prior art they found, and the deadline you have to meet into one dense package with no summary at the front.
What the examiner found
the examiner’s legal conclusions, the prior art they found
What is affected
which claims are affected
What happens next
what date your reply is due
The first useful thing is not legal advice. It is a straight reading of the document: what kind of action it is, which sections of the Patent Act the examiner relied on, which claims are affected, and what date your reply is due. That is what we do first, and it is what the rest of the decision depends on.
What actually happened
Your application was assigned to an examiner in a technology art unit. The examiner searched for earlier publications and patents, read your claims against what they found, and wrote up every reason the application cannot be allowed in its current form. Those reasons are grouped under sections of the Patent Act — most often §102 and §103 for prior art, §112 for how the claims are written, and §101 for whether the subject matter is eligible at all.
This is a normal stage of prosecution rather than a verdict. The majority of granted US patents received at least one rejection first. What matters now is that a reply period is running, and that the reply has to address every ground the examiner raised.
A written examination report that requires a reply
Three months from the mailing date for an action on the merits
Six months from the mailing date, set by statute and not extendable
The application goes abandoned under 37 CFR 1.135
You, or a US-registered patent attorney or agent acting for you
What matters now, in order
The mailing date on the front page
Every deadline in the process counts from that date, not from the day you received or opened the letter. Find it first.
Whether the action is final or non-final
It changes what you are allowed to file in response. A non-final action lets you amend freely; after a final action your options narrow sharply.
Which grounds of rejection the examiner used
A §103 obviousness rejection is answered in a completely different way from a §112 indefiniteness rejection. Most actions contain several at once.
Whether a US practitioner has to sign the reply
If the applicant is located outside the United States, the current rules require representation by a US-licensed practitioner for the filing itself.
What a response would cost
Preparation cost depends on how many grounds are in play and how much the claims need to change. USPTO fees are separate and set by regulation.
The mailing date on the front page
Every deadline in the process counts from that date, not from the day you received or opened the letter. Find it first.
Whether the action is final or non-final
It changes what you are allowed to file in response. A non-final action lets you amend freely; after a final action your options narrow sharply.
Which grounds of rejection the examiner used
A §103 obviousness rejection is answered in a completely different way from a §112 indefiniteness rejection. Most actions contain several at once.
Whether a US practitioner has to sign the reply
If the applicant is located outside the United States, the current rules require representation by a US-licensed practitioner for the filing itself.
What a response would cost
Preparation cost depends on how many grounds are in play and how much the claims need to change. USPTO fees are separate and set by regulation.
How this works
You upload the PDF
No account, no password, no payment. The file is stored privately and is never published or made publicly reachable.
We read it
The dates, application number, examiner, art unit and grounds of rejection are read directly from the document. Each fact records the page it came from.
We calculate the reply period
Deterministically, from the mailing date and the type of action, with the rules that were applied shown alongside the dates.
A person checks the output
You do not receive unreviewed machine output. If the automated reading was uncertain, we say so instead of guessing.
You decide
You get the summary, the deadline and an honest description of what a response involves. Whether to go further is your call.
Where people usually start
The action cites two patents together and says the combination makes the invention obvious — that is a §103 rejection.
The action says one earlier document already describes everything in a claim — that is a §102 rejection.
The action says the claim language is unclear, or that the description does not support what is claimed — that is §112.
The action says the claimed subject matter is not eligible at all — that is §101, and it is common for software and diagnostics.
The word FINAL appears in the heading, which narrows what you can file and puts a shorter practical clock on it.
The examiner is requiring you to elect between separate inventions before any of them is examined — that is a restriction requirement.
Send us the document and find out where you stand
One PDF. We read it, tell you which grounds it contains and when the reply is due, and a person checks the result before it reaches you.
Questions people ask
It is a rejection of the claims as they are currently written, not a final decision on the application. You have a reply period in which to amend the claims, argue against the examiner’s reasoning, or both. Most granted US patents were rejected at least once first.
An action on the merits normally sets three months from the mailing date, extendable in one-month steps for a fee under 37 CFR 1.136(a), but never beyond six months from the mailing date. That six-month wall comes from 35 USC 133 and cannot be extended.
The application goes abandoned under 37 CFR 1.135. Revival is sometimes possible under 37 CFR 1.137 by petition, with a fee and a statement that the delay was unintentional, but it is a remedy rather than a plan.
For the filing itself, yes: current USPTO rules require an applicant whose domicile is outside the United States to be represented by a practitioner registered to practise before the USPTO. Understanding your own document, which is what this site helps with, does not require anyone’s permission.
Professional preparation typically falls between about $1,200 for a narrow single-ground action and $8,000 for a complex final action with many references. USPTO fees, including any extension of time, are set by regulation and are charged separately.
It is stored in private encrypted storage with no public URL, read by our processing pipeline and by the person reviewing your case, and deleted on request or after the retention period. It is never published, sold or used to train a model.
Where this comes from
Every statement of law or procedure on this page traces to a primary source you can check yourself.