Inventions
Burden Shift: CNIPA Requires Applicant to “Prove” that Post-Filing Data is not Fake Data
1 April 2025“Good Faith” is a challenging concept that brings with it the nuances of a particular jurisdiction’s ideas about honesty, moral values, and societal expectations. Most patent laws around the world include good faith requirements – especially in matters involving the legal and the medical profession – and China is no exception. So what’s the standard? […]
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RNAi Patent Success in China: Overcoming “Comprising” Claim Challenges
10 March 2025An Update on Sufficiency and Inventiveness of RNAi Patents in China RNAi is a fast-developing technology that has gained traction in the pharmaceutical industry as a promising therapeutic agent. It is important to follow closely RNAi patent proceedings to learn how different examination boards and courts understand and handle these new technologies. The first-ever invalidation […]
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Can I transfer priority rights in China without the consent of other applicants? Insights from the Broad Institute’s CRISPR patent
4 February 2025The high-profile disputes surrounding an important CRISPR patent belonging to The Broad Institute, MIT and Harvard (hereinafter “the proprietors”) has attracted a lot of attention in recent years, particularly regarding the validity of priority rights that were challenged worldwide. In Europe, the patent was famously revoked by the European Patent Office (hereinafter “EPO”) due to […]
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AI is magical but NOT magic! Be specific in your AI patents!
9 January 2025What is the standard of sufficient disclosure for AI-related patents: A case study in China The rapid growth of AI patent applications present significant challenges to existing patent application and examination practices. One of them is satisfying the requirement for sufficient disclosure. The following case was featured in the 2023 CNIPA Compilation of Key Decisions […]
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How a Secondhand Ground Brush Wiped Away a Chinese Patent
4 December 2024A Chinese robot vacuum company digs up “hidden evidence” to successfully invalidate a patent owned by its biggest competitor. Highlights Background With the growth of online shopping, it is easier than ever to provide evidence of a sale when the product is still being sold on the market. But what if the product is no […]
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A More Detailed Overview of China’s Patent Term Extension (PTE) System
17 June 2024Although PTE has been in the Chinese Patent Law since the 4th Amendment of the law came into effect June 1, 2021, we didn’t really know the exact details of how it operated until the Implementation Regulations and Examination Guidelines (“Implementation Regulations”) were finally released in December 2023. New Rules 77-84 in the Implementation Regulations […]
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Everything you need to know about Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) in China
7 May 2024We previously discussed patent term compensation for patent office delay (‘Patent Term Adjustment’ or ‘PTA’) when such new system was introduced in the Fourth Amendment of the Chinese Patent Law (2020), as well as in the different versions of the Draft Examination Guidelines released in 2021 and 2022. In this article, we consolidate everything you need to […]
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Miss the 12-month Filing Deadline? China Finally Allows Patent Applicants to Restore, Add, or Correct a Priority Claim
15 April 2024Three major 'remedial’ systems taken from the PCT Regulations have been introduced in the third revision of the Implementation Regulations of the Chinese Patent Law in 2023 (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Regulations"). We previously discussed one of these remedial systems, Incorporation by Reference based on Rule 45 of the Implementation Regulations, which allows […]
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Updates on Hong Kong Patents Examination Guidelines in 2024
29 February 2024The Intellectual Property Department of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKIPD) has recently made several updates to the Hong Kong Patents Examination Guidelines, effective from 26 January, 2024. These changes mainly clarify and reflect the Registry’s current practices regarding patent examination for Standard Patent (R) […]
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IP Strategies for the Newly Released Implementation Regulations of the 4th Amendment of the Chinese Patent Law: Part 2: Grace Period without Loss of Novelty
7 February 2024Background As mentioned in our earlier article, the Implementation Regulations of the Chinese Patent Law (“Regulations”, similar to the CFR in the US) were approved in November, and the CNIPA finally made public the full text of the Regulations just before the arrival of the New Year. At the same time, the CNIPA also released […]
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