The State Intellectual Property Office of China has recently announced the latest amendments to GUIDELINES FOR PATENT EXAMINATION (DECISION OF SIPO ON THE AMENDMENTS OF GUIDELINES FOR PATENT EXAMINATION). The decision has entered into force on October 15, 2013.

The amendments this time concern the preliminary examination of utility model application and design application, which relate to the examination on the obvious lack of novelty and double patenting of patent applications.

According to the current GUIDELINES FOR PATENT EXAMINATION, during the preliminary examination of utility model application and design application, it is generally not examined whether the application obviously lacks novelty, which means that the examiner does not judge through search if the utility model application obviously lacks novelty or if the design application obviously belongs to prior design.

After amendments, it is prescribed that during the preliminary examination, the examiner may, based on the information of prior art, prior design or conflict¬ing applications obtained through search or other approaches, examine whether an utility model application or a design application obviously lacks novel¬ty, including the novelty examination of those applications obviously in bad faith.

With regard to the examination of double patenting, the amended guidelines clarifies that, during the preliminary examination, the examiner shall examine whether the utility model application or the design application complies with the provision of Article 9 of the Patent Law.

It is clear that, through this latest amendments to GUIDELINES FOR PATENT EXAMINATION, SIPO intends to enhance the examination on the utility model application and design application, and to strengthen the examination on the obvious substantive defects during the preliminary examination, so as to improve the quality of the granted Chinese patents for utility models and designs, thus the undesirable situation where abnormal applications or applications in bad faith are granted the patent rights in the past due to the non-substantive examination for utility model application and design application could be improved.

We hope that the amendments to the guidelines this time can achieve its desired objectives and promote the sound development for patent protection in China.


Link: DECISION OF SIPO ON THE AMENDMENTS OF GUIDELINES FOR PATENT EXAMINATION