Draft Revision of the Patent Examination Guidelines Released for Public Comments

The State Intellectual Property Office is now soliciting public opinions on the released Draft Revision of the Patent Examination Guidelines (Draft Revision) to provide patent protection to graphical user interface design. The deadline for submission is November 22, 2013.

The Draft Revision revises the following contents in Chapter III of Part I of the currently available Patent Examination Guidelines:

•       adding requirements for drawings or photographs in patent application for graphical user interface design(section 4.2);
•       adding stipulations regarding the brief description for graphical user interface design(section 4.3).
•        removing the non-patentability of articles involving graphical user interface (section 7.4);
•       adapting non-patentable conditions in graphical user interface design(section 7.2);

More, in Chapter V of Part IV stipulations of determinants are added for identifying obvious distinctions between the applicant's designs and prior art (section 6.1).