On Friday our time, or Thursday in Canada, a cover letter was...

On Friday our time, or Thursday in Canada, a cover letter was issued for the Canadian Patent Document 317611 for the application, “Methods and Systems for Recovery of Valuable Target Species from Brine Solutions” by Prairie Lithium Corporation.

This is a good indication the final stage has started, provided there has been no application to amend the patent. The Patent Office will make a request for the final payment and then on receipt of payment change the patent status to Pre-Grant from Examination Requested and set a forecast date for issue.

Unlike the Americans, the Canadians are more efficient in their bureaucratic processes to meet deadlines that don’t impede business or commercial innovation, especially in mining industry. It is expected the granted patent will occur within 2-4 weeks after the receipt of the final payment fee.

As a rule of thumb, the minimum timeframe for a patent is 2 years from the date of filing to its approval. This allows 18 months of public inspection before the Patent Office start their internal examination of the application. So, if anyone is making numerous false statements about a pending patent within this minimum window are being deceptive and non-genuine in their intentions.