China plans to cut patent examinations to 15 months
The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has unveiled a new five-year plan for patent and trademark examination, including targets that should be reached within three years.
Patent practitioners should strive to cut the patent examination cycle from an average of 20 months to 15 months, according to the plan reported by the National Law Review on January 24.
To encourage a “rational” rise in the number of applications as well as an improvement in quality, the CNIPA will be fully cancelling subsidies for both patent application filings and grants.
According to the draft version of the examination guidelines released in August, this may require adding a preliminary examination for inventiveness to the preliminary examination for novelty.
The new plan shows CNIPA is also aiming to reform the utility model system.
In 2019, authorities in China received 7.8 million trademark applications and 1.5 million utility patent applications, accounting for nearly half of global totals, a 2021 US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) study revealed.
The report, “ Trademarks and Patents in China, The Impact of Non-Market Factors on Filing Trends and IP Systems”, said a growing number of suspect or low-quality trademark applications could be due to Chinese government subsidies.
“China’s filings are influenced by non-market factors such as subsidies, government mandates, bad-faith trademark applications, and defensive countermeasures,” said the report.
Trial times
Under the new plan, the average trial time from the filing date of a patent invalidation case to the closing date will remain steady at six months, while average examination time from filing through the granting of trademark applications will be reduced from an average of eight months to seven months.
The development plan is the fourteenth released by the CNIPA, and adheres to the Hague Agreement on the International Registration of Industrial Designs.
The full text is available here: 专利和商标审查“十四五”规划 (Chinese only).
Back in April, China released another five year plan prioritising stronger IP protections in “hi-tech” sectors as part of the country’s economic development
According to Chinese media, this plan focused on stronger IP rules in an effort to end reliance on US technology.
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