A Restriction Requirement is an action from the patent examiner indicating that the patent application consists of two or more distinct inventions. The Restriction Requirement groups claims into the number of distinct inventions identified by the patent examiner and requires that the applicant identify the first group of claims to be prosecuted. A Restriction Requirement does not mean anything is wrong with the patent application or that any of the claims are being rejected, it simply means the examiner views the application to contain multiple, independent inventions.

Responding to a Restriction Requirement means prioritizing the group of claims to pursue first. This decision is taken after comprehensive discussions with the inventors and patent attorneys. Many factors weigh into the decision of determining which of group of claims to prosecute first and the patent attorneys will often propose a patent prosecution strategy when they forward the restriction requirement.

A Restriction Requirement does not limit the scope of a patent application, it simply limits how much of the application is prosecuted at one time. Groups of claims not chosen at the time of the restriction requirement may be prosecuted at a later date. In some cases, prosecuting a single group of claims will result in the most important aspects of an invention being protected, negating the need to prosecute the other groups of claims. In some cases, filing a divisional application at a later date to attempt to broaden the claims will be necessary to gain appropriate levels of protection.