Patent Re-examination and Invalidation Department

From Faces to Football Fields: How Applying AI Models to Different Application Fields Can Prove Inventive in China

2025年10月21日

As AI models become versatile and adaptable across multiple contexts and industries, questions about inventive step sit at the heart of patent examination in China. The 2023 Patent Examination Guidelines (hereinafter referred to as 'the Guidelines') included several sessions dedicated to explaining how inventive step should be examined for AI-related inventions, featuring examples related to […]

Obviousness: can features from different categories of products be combined to invalidate a design patent?

2025年9月18日

Introduction “I have a tank, I have a gun—boom! Tank gun?” Each year the CNIPA releases a list of Top Ten Patent Re-examination and Invalidation Cases. These cases are meant to be guiding cases, showcasing exemplary real-world decisions that clarify certain aspects of the law. Over the next several months we will be highlighting many […]

Can I transfer priority rights in China without the consent of other applicants? Insights from the Broad Institute’s CRISPR patent

2025年2月4日

The 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 […]