Extention of Time Limit Mandated by SIPO (as basically limited to one extention and for two months at most)

The State Intellectual Property Office has announced an amendment to Sec. 5, Paragrph 4.2, of Chapter 7 of Examination Guide. According to the new regulations, for making a response to an office action during the prosecution of a patent application, only a first request for a two-month extension of time can be basically allowed upon payment of official fee of RMB300 (about USD36). For further extension after the first one, only another request for one or two months, at most two months, would be possibly petitioned together with a copy of the client's instructions of the further extension and its Chinese translation as a proof of reason, but it is at the discretion of the examiner in charge whether the time extension can be granted or not. On the other hand, the official fee to this end is modified as high as RMB2000 (around USD250) per month. That is, if a further two-month extension is to be made after a first extension, the official fee for the request is about USD500. Moreover, any additional (e.g. the third) extension is absolutely impossible consequently. This new rule will effect as of Oct. 1, 1999.