Examination of short-term patent applications as regards the compliance of the claimed subject matter with the requirement “inventive step” can be divided into two stages. The first stage, as in the substantive examination of patent application, consists in the identification of non-obviousness of the claimed subject matter. When this stage ends in the conclusion that the claimed invention is certainly non-obvious, a decision on the compliance of the claimed subject matter with the requirement of patentability “inventive step” is taken. If, in the event of application of this method the claimed subject matter of the invention is recognized obvious to a person skilled in the art, it is proposed to undertake the second stage of examination consisting in identifying the presence in the claimed subject matter of advantages relative to the identified analogues.