In a press conference on January 14, 2020, the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA)released 2019 annual statistics indicating a drop of 9.1% in invention patent application filings from 2018. Nonetheless, Chinese invention applications filed in 2019 totaled a staggering 1.401 million. This compares to 616,852 U.S. utility patent application filings in fiscal year 2019, a 3% increase over fiscal year 2018. Press conference photo from CNIPA.
Category: Patents
CNIPA Announces Amended Patent Guidelines for Patent Applications Covering AI and Blockchain
The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has announced amended Patent Examination Guidelines effective February 1, 2020. The amended guidelines add a Section 6 to Chapter IX of Part Two of the Patent Examination Guidelines, which covers provisions for the examination of invention patent applications that claim mathematical limitations and business methods. The amendments are made for the special nature of examination of patent applications related to artificial intelligence, “Internet +”, big data, and blockchain.
Utility Model Patents: An Overlooked Chinese IP Right
Chinese utility model patents are often overlooked by U.S. applicants when filing patent applications in China. This might be due to a lack of familiarity with them, as the U.S. patent system does not separately provide a similar intellectual property right, and many inventions may not qualify for a UM patent due to limited subject matter eligibility. The China National Intellectual Property Administration grants UM patents only for products. The products “shall be objects manufactured by industrial methods, having definite …
CNIPA Announces Administrative Measures for Collective Patent Examination
The Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) recently issued Administrative Measures of Collective Patent Examination (pilot) (专利申请集中审查管理办法（试行). The new measures allow for the collective examination of patent applications related to the same technology by the same applicant, thereby potentially expediting examination of groups of patent application and improving consistency of examination of the group applications.