According to the Supplementary Notice on Promoting Electronic Patent Applications (hereinafter referred to as Supplementary Notice) released by SIPO, the electronic patent application rate in 2012 should reach 80% and in each month of the year, the electronic patent application rate should not be less than 78%; for patent agencies, the electronic patent application rate by the end of the year should hit 95%.
To achieve this target, different departments within SIPO are actively involved in the promoting of the electronic filing of patent applications. Measures include policy making, system support, publicity and training as well as public service. Local IP administrations also created sound atmosphere for electronic patent applicants. In the first 9 months, national electronic patent application rate was as high as 80.1%. The electronic patent application rates in some provinces and some patent agencies were 80% and 95%, respectively.
In order to realize the goal in the Supplementary Notice, the SIPO issued the Administrative Measures for the Priority Examination of Applications for Inventions, and optimized case-assignment system, SIPO also developed China patent enquiry system through which electronic patent applicants can enquire relevant information of all the electronic applications such as basic information, cost information, examination information and publication information. Payment via Internet is also possible.
