Proposed Amendments to the Implementing Rules of the Patent Law (Draft for Public Comments) (November 2020)

The revised Patent Law will be implemented on June 1, 2021.  In order to cooperate with the revision of the Patent Law, the CNIPA has carried out preparatory work for the revision of the Implementing Rules of the Patent Law and formed a comparison table of the proposed amendments to the Implementing Rules of the Patent Law (draft for comments), which was published on its website for comments from all walks of life (deadline: January 11, 2021). (https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2020/11/27/art_75_155294.html）

The amendments to the implementation rules of the Patent Law mainly include two aspects: one is to support provisions of the revised Patent Law, and the other is to improve relevant provisions according to practical needs.

Amendments to the Patent Law mainly include: first, provisions related to term compensation, time for requesting compensation for the term of patent grant, circumstances of unreasonable delay caused by the applicant, conditions for requesting compensation for the term of drug patents, the scope of drugs, the scope of protection, etc.; secondly, provisions related to the design system, involving partial design and the priority of design in the country; thirdly, provisions pertaining to open licensing, which include the open licensing request procedure and content requirements of the open license statement, the circumstances under which the open license statement will not be announced, the withdrawal procedure and effectiveness of the open license statement, the filing procedure and supporting materials after the establishment of the open license, etc.; Finally, provisions related to administrative protection, which entail the patent administrative department of the State Council dealing with the circumstances of patent infringement disputes with significant impact on the country.

Amendments based on practical needs mainly include: first, provisions related to the convergence with the Patent Cooperation Treaty, involving the invocation of accession and priority restoration; second, provisions related to the improvement of the design system, including the definition of international applications for designs related to the Hague Agreement to be acceded to, the determination of the filing date and effective date of international applications for designs, etc.; third, improvement of provisions to respond to epidemics and other emergencies, involving the ex officio extension of the deadline; fourth, provisions related to the improvement of the quality and efficiency of patent examination, involving the ex officio review of reexamination and invalidation, the review of violation of the principle of good faith and credit, and the remedy of non-rejection decisions, etc.; in addition, the implementation of the "administrative and service" requirements, which involves the evaluation report of patent rights, the simplification of the application procedures of divisional application, and the patent information service, etc.; furthermore, provisions related to the optimization of the patent examination process, which pertains to the electronic application method, the improvement and simplification of the requirements for the application documents, etc.; finally, the improvement of provisions related to strengthening administrative protection, which involves the increase of the judicial confirmation of the administrative mediation agreement of patent disputes, etc.

Adapted from the website of the CNIPA