Recently, the State Intellectual Property Office of China (“SIPO”) published proposed Draft Amendments of the Guidelines for Patent Examination (hereinafter as “Draft for Amendments”), and is seeking for public comments. According to SIPO, the aim of this revision is to further raise the quality of granted patents for utility model and design.
Specifically, the Draft for Amendments involves Part I, Chapter 2, Sections 11 and 13 of the Examination Guidelines, where are proposed to delete the expression "not determined by search" with respect to utility model. The same amendment applies to Part I, Chapter 3, Sections 8 and 11, which contain the corresponding provisions for design. It encourages examiners to find the information of prior art or existing design.
According to the amendment of the Implementing Regulations of the China Patent Law(2010), examination with regard to novelty and applicability is conducted for utility model applications and scope of prior design or conflicting application are examined for design application. As a matter of fact, the scope of the preliminary examination for utility model and design patent applications is already expanded.
The closing date of comment solicitation is on March 18, 2013. The public may submit comments by website, e-mail, facsimile, or letter.
