When and to what extent can applicant amend the industrial design application in Laos ?
As provided in Article 42 of the Intellectual Property Law, at any time an application is pending with the Department but before DIP has granted an industrial design thereon, and before the abandonment, final rejection, or other termination of proceedings on the application, the applicant may amend/divide the application, provided that any such amendment/division shall not change the essential appearance of an industrial design, that is, within the disclosure in the initial application.
An application may be divided into one or more divisional applications by filing one or more subsequent applications that make reference to the application being divided. The second or subsequent application shall be identical to the application on which it is based and shall be accompanied by a statement that the newly filed application is a division of such earlier application, which shall be identified by its filing number, title, name of designer, and filing date. Both the newly-filed application (or applications) and the earlier application shall be amended to restrict their claims to contain only a single industrial design, as appropriate, or a group of such related items as to meet requirements for the relevant form of intellectual property such as unity of industrial design. Such amendment may be filed with the divisional application or within 60 days thereafter.
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