Article 34 Period for putting application in order
Subject to the provisions of paragraph (2) below and of rule 83(3), for the purposes of sections 18(4) and 20(1), the period within which an application for a patent shall comply with the Act and these Rules,—
subject to the following provisions of this paragraph, shall be the period of four years and six months calculated from its declared priority date or, where there is no declared priority date, from the date of filing of the application; and
in the case of an application under section 8(3), 12(6) or 37(4), shall be—
the period of four years and six months calculated from the declared priority date for the earlier application or, where there is no such declared priority date, the date of filing of the earlier application; or
the period of eighteen months calculated from the actual date of filing of the application,
whichever expires the later.
In a case where,—
before or after these Rules come into force, a third party makes observations under section 21 on an application;
the examiner, for the first time in a report under section 18(3), relies upon the substance of those observations to report that the patentability requirements of the Act are not met; and
following that report, and within the last three months of the period ascertained under paragraph (1) above (including any alteration thereof under rule 100 or rule 110 or an alteration thereof previously made under this paragraph) but after these Rules come into force, the comptroller gives the applicant the opportunity under section 18(3) to make observations on the report and to amend the application,
the period within which an application for a patent shall comply with the Act and these Rules shall expire at the end of the period of three months beginning on the date when the comptroller sends notification to the applicant of that opportunity.