What actions can an applicant take in response to an examiner’s action?

According to MPEP 203.03, an applicant has several options when responding to an examiner’s action:

The applicant’s reply may be confined to an election, a traverse of the action taken by the examiner or may include an amendment of the application.

These options can be broken down as follows:

• Election: Choosing between different inventions or species identified by the examiner.
• Traverse: Arguing against the examiner’s rejections or objections.
• Amendment: Modifying the application to address the examiner’s concerns or to clarify the invention.

To learn more:

• patent application response
• examiner action
• patent amendment
• patent prosecution