CNIPA Issues Guidelines for Identification of Abnormal Patent Applications and Handling of Matters after the Identification

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), with a view to maintaining a healthy patent application environment to facilitate the national intellectual property strategy of focusing on quality, issued the Guidelines for Identification of Abnormal Patent Applications and Handling of Matters after the Identification ("the Guidelines") on 26 May 2023.

 

The Guidelines, among others, provide the standards for identifying abnormal patent applications from various perspectives, including from the contents and drafting of the application document, the applicant's application behaviour, and the agency behavior of the patent firm or patent attorney; set forth the investigation of the suspected or alleged applications and handling of abnormal patent applications after identification, including communication of the identification decision, the applicant or agency's withdrawal of the abnormal application or submission of an appeal against the identification decision; as well as state the impacts of the identification on the application itself and on the parties involved.

 

As mentioned in the Guidelines, "abnormal patent application behaviour", based on the definition in Article 2.1 of the Measures on Regulation of Patent Application Behaviours, refers to "any entity or individual, who, individually or jointly, submits a patent application of various type, or represents client in a patent application, or transfer patent application rights or patent rights, neither for the purpose of protecting innovation nor on the basis of real invention-creation activities, but with the intent of obtaining improper benefits or fictitious innovation performance or service performance”. The Measures on Regulation of Patent Application Behaviours were released by the CNIPA in March 2021, which, apart from the definition, also provide nine examples of abnormal patent application behaviours.