Patent application process in Malaysia

• The power of attorney can be submitted later within 3 months from the date of application.

20 years

• Paris Convention route: 12 months from the earliest priority date
  • Accept the restoration of priority rights on the grounds of “unintentional” and pay MYR 150
• PCT route: 30 months from the earliest priority date
  • The latest entry date is 42 months from the priority date/international application date. You need to submit relevant supporting documents and evidence for the reason of "unintentional" and pay 150 Malaysian Ringgit. The fee is charged monthly.

MyIPO conducts formal and substantive examinations on invention patent applications.

• After receiving the application documents, MyIPO will first conduct a formal review. In response to the formal correction notice issued by MyIPO, the applicant must reply to the formal review opinion within 3 months from the receipt of the notice; the patent application will be published 18 months from the priority date/application date, and patent applications withdrawn or rejected before 18 months will not be published.
• After that, it enters the substantive examination stage:
  • Paris Convention route: The applicant must file a request for substantive examination within 18 months from the date of application
  • PCT national phase: the applicant must file a request for substantive examination within 48 months from the international application date
• Applicants can choose substantive examination or revision examination
  • Substantive examination: If the applicant chooses substantive examination, he/she shall submit the examination results or search results of the corresponding applications in other countries. Information that is not available at the time of submission can be submitted later after it is obtained. The search results or examination results shall be translated into English.
  • Amended examination: If the applicant has filed a patent application in several specified countries outside Malaysia, namely the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea or the European Patent, if the Malaysian patent application is the same or substantially the same as its claims, a request for amended examination may be made. This type of examination is considered "simplified" and meets MyIPO's requirements for novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability of invention patents. The benefit of a request for amended examination is that it will provide a faster path (approximately 1-2 years from the date of application) to obtain patent authorization. The applicant needs to submit the following materials:
    • A copy of a patent application granted in a specified country or under a specified treaty or convention and its English translation
    • Amend the claims, description or drawings of the Malaysian patent application to make it basically consistent with the granted patent
    • The applicant may file a request for an extension of examination, which must be submitted within 18 months from the date of filing a national patent application or within 48 months from the date of filing an international application. After filing a request for an extension, the period for MyIPO to conduct substantive examination and amendment examination can be extended to 5 years from the date of filing.
• The average time for the first examination opinion to be issued is 1-3 years from the date of filing the request for substantive examination.
  

If the invention is disclosed by a third party in bad faith, or by the actions of the applicant or its predecessor, or by the application for a UK patent, you can enjoy the novelty grace period 12 months before the application date/priority date

3-4 years

• Authorization fee: No authorization registration fee is charged
• Annual fee: Applicants need to pay annual fees every year after authorization. The payment deadline is the authorization date of the year. If the annual fee is overdue, it can be paid within a grace period of 6 months, but a 100% late payment fee will be charged.

To accept the restoration of priority rights on the grounds of “unintentional”, it is necessary to provide:

• Statutory written statement of reasons for "no intent"
• Relevant evidence to support the request for restoration of priority right
• Overdue Fees

no

Yes. An invention patent application can be converted within 6 months from the date of issuance of the examination report and the corresponding fees must be paid. The converted application enjoys the same filing date as the original application.