Monday, March 15, 2021
On March 12, 2021, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the “Measures Regarding the Regulation of Patent Applications” (关于规范申请专利行为的办法) effective immediately. CNIPA is continuing the transition from quantity to quality in patent applications and one method is to reject ‘abnormal’ or ‘irregular’ (junk) patent applications as defined in the Measures. These measures and the concurrent elimination of monetary incentives for patent filings should decrease the total amount of applications filed in China and specifically junk patents.
Article 2 defines the following behaviors as abnormal:
(1) Simultaneously or successively submitting multiple patent applications that are obviously the same in invention-creation content, or are essentially formed by simple combinations of different invention-creation features or elements;
Monday, February 15, 2021
As is often the case in China, a critical change in the IP system has taken place without the publicity of a new law but with an internal administrative document hidden on a government website. With an administrative Circular issued on January 27, 2021, the China IP office is rewriting the rules that led to the massive surge in low-quality patent filings (a/k/a junk patents) by Chinese firms during the last decade, while subtly changing the scope of the statutory rules on the examination of utility models and design patents. The ultimate goal is another implementation of an old Marxist rule, namely, the transformation from quantity to quality.