Patent Law

CNIPA further clarifies how it counts “delays” when calculating Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) in the new Draft Examination Guidelines and how it affects international applicants

2023年4月12日

At the end of October 2022, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released a new draft amendment of the Patent Examination Guidelines[1] (hereinafter referred to as the “New Draft”) to the new Chinese Patent Law that came into effect in 2021. We highlight two key amendments below. 1. The starting date for calculating PTA […]

Foreigners Beware: China Proposes Requiring IP Made Using Exported Chinese Genetic Resources to be Co-Owned by Chinese Collaborators

2023年3月22日

Proposed Examination Guidelines for the New Chinese Patent Law – Topic 2: Genetic Resource Restriction How Will the Tightened Genetic Resource Restrictions Affect Your IP In 2019-2021, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (“MOST”, or the Science Ministry) established several laws and regulations with respect to biosafety[1] and human genetic resources management[2] (collectively referred as […]

Introducing the New USPTO Cancer Moonshot Expedited Examination Pilot Program

2023年1月10日

Starting from February 1, 2023, the USPTO will begin the new Cancer Moonshot Expedited Examination Pilot Program that advances out-of-turn applications that are directed to oncology or smoking cessation. This new program will replace the Cancer Immunotherapy Pilot Program that has been in place since 2016, and covers more technologies than only cancer immunotherapies. Applications […]

FOLLOW UP: Amendments to the China Patent Examination Guidelines in 2022 – Part 1: New rules for designs in view of China signing onto the Hague Agreement

2023年1月4日

Since the publication of our earlier article about China signing onto the Hague Agreement, some of our Hong Kong clients have expressed interest in taking advantage of the Hague international design application system, i.e., filing a Hague international design application with the CNIPA (Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration) as a receiving office (RO). Up until […]

Chinese Courts Cares More About Patent Quality Now (A Doctrine of Equivalents Story)

2022年12月13日

There is no doubt that the drafting quality of a patent can be crucial in determining the success (or failure!) of the patent during litigation. However, due to various reasons, patents often fail to use the right drafting strategies that best protect the invention. Too often, inexperienced or unsophisticated patent drafters merely listen to an […]

Amendments to the China Patent Examination Guidelines in 2022 - Part 1: New rules for designs in view of China signing onto the Hague Agreement

2022年12月2日

This year, China stepped further onto the international scene by signing on as a member of the Hague Agreement. The Hague Agreement is an international registration system allowing applicants to file a single international design application in a single language to obtain protection in over 100 designated member countries. The US has been a member […]

China Proposes New Examination Guidelines for Utility Models

2022年11月24日

The Utility Model (UM) in China has always been a popular choice for patent filing due to its relatively low cost and speed of prosecution. The UM prosecution only includes a preliminary examination, which is essentially a mini (stripped down) version of an invention application’s substantive examination.[1] With the simplified examination process, UMs are typically […]

China Announcing More Proposed Amendments to the Examination Guidelines in 2022

2022年11月17日

It’s been a year and a half since the new Chinese Patent Law came into effect (1 June 2021). Although various versions of draft Examination Guidelines have been released, thus far no official finalized versions have been confirmed. On October 31, 2022, yet another new list of proposed amendments was published[1], this time consolidating the […]

US vs CN: Foreign Filing License Requirements

2022年11月9日

In China, foreign filing requirements are generally very similar to the US — a foreign filing license is required if a foreign application is to be filed first for an invention made in the country. The Chinese equivalent to the US foreign filing license is called a confidentiality examination for foreign filing. According to Chinese […]

Compositions Limited by Use: A Cautionary Tale

2022年10月26日

Section 4.2.3, Part II Chapter 10 of the CNIPA’s Examination Guidelines (“Guidelines”) stipulates that if the specification only discloses one property or use of a composition, the composition claim shall be drafted as a “composition limited by the function or the use”. Furthermore, it specifically states that “most pharmaceutical claims shall be drafted as claims […]

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