On April 30, 2025, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the Notice regarding Solicitation of Public Opinions on the Draft Amendments to the Guidelines for Patent Examination (for Comments), proposing to amend fourteen chapters in the five parts on preliminary examination, substantive examination, examination of national phase applications of PCT international applications, reexamination and invalidation, and patent application and affairs in the Guidelines for Patent Examination.
1. Amendments Related to Preliminary Examination
It is specified that patent agencies shall be responsible for the authenticity and validity of the inventor identity information, applicant identity information, and contact details in the patent requests they file. Moreover, the requirements for inventor identity information are added. Currently, only the first inventor's nationality and Chinese resident identification card number is required in the request form, but the Draft Amendment extends this requirement from the first inventor to all inventors.
2. Amendments Related to Substantive Examination
1) Amendments to the subject matter of plant variety protection. The definition of "plant" has been deleted, and definition of plant variety added, which harmonizes with the requirements related to plant varieties of the Seed Law of China, making breeding materials that cannot be protected by the plant new variety rights become patentable.
2) Amendments regarding the treatment of identical invention-creation. It is clarified that whether one invention application and one utility model application are of the same invention-creation should be considered based on the applicant's statement made in the request forms. The way for processing applications filed on the same day has been changed, requiring the applicant to abandon granted utility model patent in order to obtain the invention patent, and one shall not obtain both the utility model patent and invention patent merely by revising the protection scope of the invention application.
3) Amendments to the novelty examination. It is specified that features in the claims that do not contribute to the solution of the technical problem typically do not endow the claimed invention with novelty, or enhance the level of novelty of the invention. It is highlighted that, in assessing novelty, the entire technical solution defined by the claims shall be considered from the perspective of those skilled in the art, with the essence of the invention accurately understood to ensure that the patented claims truly match the invention's contribution to the prior art.
4) Amendments to the examination in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Addition has been made of the requirements for examination of the content of application documents, such as whether the data collection, labeling management, rule setting, recommendation decision-making, and other content presented in the application documents violate the law, social ethics, or harm the public interests, as well as whether they run against fairness and justice or exhibit discriminatory biases. Inventiveness examination standards are clarified with typical cases. And additions have also been made of the requirements and examples for drafting that satisfy the required sufficient disclosure of the description.
5) Addition of the examination on invention patent applications that include bit streams. In fields like streaming media, communication systems, and computer systems, various types of data are usually generated, stored, and transmitted in the form of bit streams. This new section aims to provide specific provisions for the examination of the subject matter claimed in invention patent applications that include bit streams, as well as for the drafting of the description and claims.
3. Amendments Related to Examination on National Phase Applications
The rules for calculating additional fees related to sequence listings are revised: 1) for sequence listings in computer-readable form filed in the prescribed format, pages of the sequence listings will not be calculated for excessive specification fee; and 2) the provision on fee calculation for sequence listings exceeding 400 pages has been deleted. However, for regular national applications filed in paper form, the excessive specification fees are still subject to the number of pages of the sequence listing in paper form.
4. Amendments Related to Reexamination and Invalidation
Requirements on the qualification of petitioners of invalidation requests have been added. Filed invalidation requests that do not reflect the true will of the petitioners will not be accepted. And the principle of "res judicata" has been specified. For example, if only simple adjustments and changes are made to the reasons or evidence for invalidation but the legal facts remain substantially the same, it still falls under the scope regulated by the "res judicata" principle. New formal requirements for submitting amended patent claims in the invalidation proceedings and related procedural rules have also been added.
5. Amendments Related to Patent Application and Affairs
There are significant changes related to patent term compensation. It is clarified that although the patent application documents have not been amended in the reexamination procedure, situations where the revocation of rejection decisions is based on new reasons stated or new evidence provided by the applicant shall be considered as reasonable delays, and no patent term compensation will be granted for such delays. However, if the applicant claims that the substantive examination proceeding violates legal procedures and requests to revoke the rejection in the reexamination stage, and the panel only revokes the rejection based on such procedural non-compliances, it does not fall under the domain of "reasonable delays".
The CNIPA had released a comparison table and explanations of the amendments in the Draft Amendment to the Patent Examination Guidelines in the notice, and sought public opinions from all sectors of the society. The public were invited to email their well-developed specific suggestions to the CNIPA before June 15, 2025.
Source: official website of the CNIPA
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