4  August, 2012

Legal News & Analysis – Asia Pacific – China – Intellectual Property

Effective from August 1, 2012, applicants will have an option to request the China State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) to take a "Prioritized Examination” for handling their invention patent applications.

An application qualified for prioritized examination must be an invention patent application filed through e-filing and meet one of the following conditions:

(1)  an important application relating to the technical fields of energy saving, environment protection, new generation information technology, biology, advanced device manufacturing, new energy source, new material, new energy source automobiles, etc.; or

(2)  an important application relating to a green development, such as low carbon technology and resource saving, etc.; or

(3)  an application which is firstly filed in China and further filed in the other countries or districts with the same subject matter; or

(4)  any application which has a great significance to the national profit and the public interest and need prioritized examination.

The request for Prioritized Examination shall be considered by SIPO after the application enters into substantive examination. SIPO shall issue the First Office Action within 30 working days from the date of approval of qualified request and make a final decision to close the case within one year. The applicant is required to respond to any Office Action within 2 months from the date of receipt and the deadline cannot be extended, otherwise SIPO will terminate the prioritized examination and treat the application as a general application.  

SIPO will adjust the number of the prioritized applications based on the examination capability in different technical fields, the number of granted patent in the last year and the number of application to be examined in the current year and so on.