A new policy for voluntary divisional applications will come into effect over the following next few months in Colombia.

The new policy will address two of the most conflictive requirements of the current policy, i.e. (a) literal division and (b) new and amended specification for the divisional.
As a reminder of the current policies, a voluntary divisional application must comply with the following requirements for it to be accepted into prosecution:

1. Divisional applications must comply with the literal requirement, meaning by literal, the claim numeration in consecutive order from the parent case. For instance, if claims 1-5 are a product claims and 6-10 method claims, then, divisional only proceeds to either of these groups.
2. A divisional must have an independent specification covering the specific subject matter claimed in the divisional. This means that a new specification must be filed including object of the invention, detailed description, figures, etc, directed only to the subject matter of the divisional.
3. A divisional application directed to the originally filed claims as a back-up strategy or precautionary measure in case the parent case is denied, is not acceptable under our legislation.
4. A divisional application directed to subject matter that has already been studied/examined in the parent case is not allowed.

In our experience, complying with the literal requirement has refrained applicants from having a proper and full protection of their inventions given that different inventive concepts are not always present in a literal form and therefore, divisional applications protecting additional embodiments cannot be filed. Furthermore, drafting a new specification has resulted in a very difficult and demanding task for applicants due to the overlapping of the subject matter in the description.