The newly revised design patent regulations came into effect on June 1, 2021, introducing two important changes for the design applications filed on/after today, the partial design becoming patentable and design patent term extended to 15 years.

Partial design

IP owners can file design patent applications for partial designs now. But it is unclear how partial design applications are to be examined since the detailed implementing rules and examination guidelines have not been released yet.

Under such circumstance we provide the following suggestions to assist you in filing partial designs before any specific guidelines become available:

  • If your prior design application filed is a partial design, you can file the Chinese partial design application straight with the same views first, and then make further amendments to the views when any issue is raised by the Chinese examiners.
  • If your prior design application filed is a whole design shown by solid line drawings, but you only want to protect part of the whole design in China, you can use solid lines to illustrate the claimed part and broken lines to illustrate the disclaimed part in the views at filing and then make further amendments when any issue is raised by the Chinese examiners.
  • If your prior design application filed is a whole design shown by photographs or rendering drawings, but you only want to protect part of the whole design in China, you can circle the claimed part or, redact the disclaimed part with the translucent coverage in a different color, and/or indicate which part is claimed in the brief description as filed.

In practice, the cases may be more complex than the above. We will provide specific suggestions or comments where necessary to assist you in obtaining better protection for your designs in China.

15-Year Patent Term

For design patent applications filed on or after 1 June 2021, the patent term will be 15 years from the filing date.

If you have a pending design patent application which was first filed in China before June 1, 2021 and the six-month priority term is still available, you may consider the following strategy to extend the patent term of such design patent application from 10 years to 15 years:

You can refile a new Chinese design application claiming priority to the prior design application. Then, the prior design application will be deemed as withdrawn from the filing date of the new Chinese design application, but the new Chinese design application will be able to obtain a 15-year patent term starting from its filing date.

We hope the above information is helpful for you. We will let you know and provide you with more specific and detailed recommendations and strategies on the partial design protection in China once the new implementing rules are released.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.