What is a continuation-in-part application?

Sometimes, during the application process, it will be necessary for the inventor to add some new matter to the specification (if, for example, during the time the application is pending, the inventor makes some improvement to his invention).  If this happens, a continuation-in-part application (also referred to as a “CIP application”) can be filed by the inventor, containing the new specification information. This CIP application will be related to the original application (a.k.a. the “parent application”) because most of the specification is the same as the parent application’s specification.