China National Intellectual Property Administration Issued Draft on Revision of Patent Examination Guidelines (Re-Solicitation of Comments)

On October 31, 2022, China National Intellectual Property Administration issued the Draft on Revision of the Patent Examination Guidelines (Re-Consultation Draft) with the deadline for feedback on 15 December.

The Draft made about 50 amendments in six aspects, in the part of preliminary examination, the system of invoking accession, the system of restoring priority claims and the system of reviewing the principle of good faith and credit have been revised; in the part of examination of review and invalidation requests, the provisions of the systems of collegial examination, sole examination, recusal system, prohibition of practice and invalidation procedure have been mainly revised; in the part of patent application and handling of affairs, the acceptance procedure of filing additional documents by invoking prior applications and the content of requests for delayed examination of utility models are added; the content of amendments to international applications for design and the description of amendments are added.