Recently, the Patent Reexamination Board of State Intellectual Property Office(PRB) announced that China received 20,261 cases of patent reexamination and invalidation in 2012, nearly 5 times as much as the number in 2008 (which was 4,364 pieces). Out of the 20,261 cases, 17,320 relate to patent re-examination and 2,941 relate to patent invalidation. In addition, the administrative litigation cases by PRB amounted to 1,403.
According to the statistics, the number of concluded cases of patent reexamination and invalidation increased steadily in 2012, a rise of 10.6% as compared with the year 2011. Of all concluded cases, 11,427 were related to patent reexamination and 2,599 were related to patent invalidation.
According to PRB, the quality of reexamination and invalidation has been well maintained and the pending period has been shorted to an average of 12.5 months for patent re-examination. And the average pendency for invalidation was dropped to 6.7 months from 7.3 months in 2011.
