State Intellectual Property Office announcement

No. 411

In order to conscientiously implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on strengthening intellectual property protection, comprehensively improve the quality of patents, ensure the realization of the legislative purpose of the Patent Law of encouraging genuine innovation activities, and abide by the principle of good faith, the State Intellectual Property Office has formulated the "Regulations on Regulating Applications". The Measures for Patent Acts, are hereby promulgated, and shall come into force on the date of promulgation.

Special announcement.

State Intellectual Property Office

March 11, 2021

Measures on Regulating the Behavior of Patent Application

Article 1 In order to resolutely crack down on all kinds of abnormal patent applications that violate the legislative purpose of the Patent Law and the principle of good faith, these Measures are formulated in accordance with the Patent Law and its implementing rules, the Patent Agency Regulations and other relevant laws and regulations. For abnormal patent application behavior and abnormal patent application, they shall be strictly examined and dealt with in accordance with these Measures.

Article 2 The “irregular patent application behavior” as mentioned in these Measures refers to any unit or individual, not for the purpose of protecting innovation, not based on real invention-creation activities, for the purpose of seeking illegitimate benefits or fictitious innovation performance or service performance, alone or Liaison submits various patent applications, acts as an agent for patent applications, transfers patent application rights or patent rights, etc.

The following types of behaviors belong to the abnormal patent application behaviors referred to in these Measures:

(1) simultaneously or successively submitting multiple patent applications whose contents of the invention-creation are obviously identical, or which are substantially formed by the simple combination and change of the features or elements of different invention-creations;

(2) The submitted patent application has fabricated, forged or altered the content of inventions and creations, experimental data or technical effects, or plagiarized, simply replaced, pieced together existing technologies or existing designs, etc.;

(3) The invention-creation of the submitted patent application is obviously inconsistent with the actual R&D capability and resource conditions of the applicant or inventor;

(4) The invention-creation content of the multiple patent applications submitted is mainly generated randomly by computer programs or other technologies;

(5) The invention-creation submitted for the patent application is an invention that is deliberately formed to avoid the purpose of patentability examination and obviously does not conform to technical improvement or common sense of design, or has no actual protection value, deteriorates, piles up, or unnecessarily narrows the scope of protection Created, or without any search and review significance;

(6) In order to evade regulatory measures against abnormal patent application behavior, multiple patent applications that are substantially related to specific units, individuals or addresses are submitted in a scattered, successive or different place;

(7) Not buying or selling patent application rights or patent rights for the purpose of implementing patented technologies, designs or other legitimate purposes, or falsely changing inventors or designers;

(8) Patent agencies, patent attorneys, or other institutions or individuals acting as agents, inducing, instigating, helping others or conspiring with them to carry out various abnormal patent application behaviors;

(9) Other abnormal patent application behaviors and related behaviors that violate the principle of good faith and disrupt the normal order of patent work.

Article 3 If the State Intellectual Property Office discovers or learns from reports during the patent application acceptance, preliminary examination, substantive examination, reexamination procedures, or the international stage procedures of an international application, and preliminarily determines that there is an abnormal patent application behavior referred to in these Measures, it may Form a special examination working group or authorize examiners to initiate special examination procedures in accordance with these Measures, conduct centralized processing in batches, inform applicants, require them to immediately stop relevant actions, and voluntarily withdraw relevant patent applications or legal formalities within the specified time limit, or State an opinion.

If the applicant is dissatisfied with the preliminary determination of the abnormal patent application behavior, it shall state its opinion within the specified time limit and submit sufficient supporting materials. If no response is made within the time limit without justifiable reasons, the relevant patent application shall be deemed to be withdrawn, and the request for handling relevant legal formalities shall be deemed to have not been submitted.

After the applicant's statement, if the State Intellectual Property Office still believes that it is an abnormal patent application behavior as mentioned in these Measures, it may reject the relevant patent application according to law, or disapprove the request for the relevant legal formalities.

If the applicant is not satisfied with the above-mentioned decision of the State Intellectual Property Office, it may file an application for administrative reconsideration, a request for reexamination or file an administrative lawsuit in accordance with the law.

Article 4 For a recognized abnormal patent application, the State Intellectual Property Office may, depending on the circumstances, refuse to reduce the patent fee; if the fee has been reduced, it is required to make up the reduced fee.

For applicants with serious circumstances such as repeated offenses, the patent fee will not be reduced within five years from the date of the abnormal patent application behavior.

Article 5 The All-China Patent Attorneys Association shall take self-discipline measures for patent agencies or patent attorneys who have abnormal patent application behaviors as mentioned in Item (8) of Article 2, paragraph 2, of these Measures. In serious cases, the State Intellectual Property Office or the department in charge of patent work shall impose penalties in accordance with laws and regulations.

For other institutions or individuals who have the above-mentioned acts, the administrative department of patent work shall punish them in accordance with the relevant provisions on the investigation and punishment of unqualified patent agency acts, and those who violate other laws and regulations shall be transferred to the relevant departments for handling according to law.

Article 6 If the patent management department or patent agency finds out or learns the clues of abnormal patent application behavior according to the report, it shall report to the State Intellectual Property Office in a timely manner.

The administrative department of patent work shall implement relevant measures in accordance with the requirements of relevant policy documents for units or individuals that are found to have abnormal patent application behaviors.

Article 7 If a unit or individual committing the acts mentioned in Article 2 is suspected of constituting a crime according to the "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China", it shall be transferred to the relevant organs for investigation of criminal responsibility according to law.

Article 8 These Measures shall come into force on the date of promulgation.

Related Links: Interpretation of "Measures on Regulating the Behavior of Patent Application"