{"data":{"id":"us/37-cfr-1.115","jurisdiction":"us","citation":"37 CFR 1.115","heading":"Preliminary amendments.","body":"(a) A preliminary amendment is an amendment that is received in the Office (§ 1.6) on or before the mail date of the first Office action under § 1.104. The patent application publication may include preliminary amendments (§ 1.215(a)).\n(1) A preliminary amendment that is present on the filing date of an application is part of the original disclosure of the application.\n(2) A preliminary amendment filed after the filing date of the application is not part of the original disclosure of the application.\n(b) A preliminary amendment in compliance with § 1.121 will be entered unless disapproved by the Director.\n(1) A preliminary amendment seeking cancellation of all the claims without presenting any new or substitute claims will be disapproved.\n(2) A preliminary amendment may be disapproved if the preliminary amendment unduly interferes with the preparation of a first Office action in an application. Factors that will be considered in disapproving a preliminary amendment include:\n(i) The state of preparation of a first Office action as of the date of receipt (§ 1.6) of the preliminary amendment by the Office; and\n(ii) The nature of any changes to the specification or claims that would result from entry of the preliminary amendment.\n(3) A preliminary amendment will not be disapproved under (b)(2) of this section if it is filed no later than:\n(i) Three months from the filing date of an application under § 1.53(b);\n(ii) The filing date of a continued prosecution application under § 1.53(d); or\n(iii) Three months from the date the national stage is entered as set forth in § 1.491 in an international application.\n(4) The time periods specified in paragraph (b)(3) of this section are not extendable.","path":["Title 37—Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights","CHAPTER I—UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE","SUBCHAPTER A—GENERAL","PART 1—RULES OF PRACTICE IN PATENT CASES","Subpart B—National Processing Provisions"],"source_url":"https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2026-08-25/title-37.xml","current_through":"2026-08-25","vintage":"","retrieved_at":"2026-08-27T02:25:45Z","sha256":"4477e71bfef20a9d59b35dfabd23fd057e58089b68ddb463365af9080b8da2bc","source_id":"us-cfr","stale":true,"prev":"us/37-cfr-1.114","next":"us/37-cfr-1.116"},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}