Recently, the State Intellectual Property Office of PRC (SIPO) published opinions on further improving the quality of patent applications (hereinafter as the “Opinions”). According to the Opinions:
1. Government policy and patent assessment should focus more on quality rather than quantity of patent applications. IP authorities should rely more upon the levels of drafting and technical inventiveness as the main factors governing patent quality when processing patent applications. Local government and authorities should establish patent quality supervision system and receive timely patent application quality information report. Academies and R& D institutions should establish patent quality management system under the guidelines of Enterprise Intellectual Property Management Specifications.
2. Government and IP authorities should stratify patent appraisal standards in different regions considering factors such as proportions of invention patents and patent applications, PCT applications, patent renewals, withdrawn patents and abandoned patents etc.
3. Small and medium-sized enterprises, utilities, scientific research institutions and non-service inventors who get their patents granted in foreign countries are the main orientations of government funding. Inventors of utility model patents and design patents can apply for government funding only by providing Patent Search Report issued by patent service institutions or patent evaluation report issued by patent administration department. The government funding should also be specifically oriented to enterprises and institutions as well as IP service organizations that excel in IP fields, to assist them in areas of patent information utilization in technology research and development, patent commercialization and evaluation, patent insurance and administrative standardization, pledge financing and foreign patent applications etc.
4. Credit archives management system should be established for entities in applying for patent applications. Any corruption or deception in patent applications should be strictly discouraged, and the entities that corrupt or deceive in patent applications or in receiving government funding by such acts should get intensive punishment.
5. Patent agencies should be further regulated. All illegal operations of patent agency should be punished and disclosed on China Patent Agency Integrity Information Platform. Patent agencies should further enhance their service capacity and the capability of the staff members by adopting more top talents and establishing regular updated training system.
