China: CNIPA Issued Promotion Plan To Strengthen IP Protection

On November 4th 2022, CNIPA issued the "Promotion Plan for the In-depth Implementation of the Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights" (hereinafter referred to as the "Promotion Plan"), in which a timetable for each task was proposed, and some key tasks and timetables are listed as follows:

1. Implement the revision of "Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law of China" ,"Guidelines for Patent Examination Guide" revision by the end of December 2022.

This means that the implementation rules documenting the PTE and PTA are expected to be implemented within the year.

2. Draft amendments to the "Regulations of China on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants" will be formulated by the end of December 2022.

3. Reform of the utility model system will be promoted by December 2025, introducing the examination of obvious lack of inventiveness.

Before that, the utility model could be granted without substantive examination, but the CNIPA proposed improving the quality of utility models by including the examination of obvious lack of novelty since 2009, and this time, the examination of obvious lack of inventiveness will be further included by December 2025. It is predicted that the grant rate of utility models in China will further decrease in the coming years.

4. By December 2022, the examination cycle for invention patents will be reduced to within 16. 5 months, and the examination cycle for trademark registration in general cases will be stabilized at 7 months.

5. By the end of December 2022, prepare the examination guidelines for the protection of new varieties of agricultural plants, complete the acceptance of more than 7,000 cases and the grant number of more than 3,000 cases of new varieties of agricultural plants, and shorten the examination cycle by 15 days. Establish a management system for the protection of new varieties of forest and grass plants. This is an important initiative for China to begin to attach importance to the protection of new varieties of animals and plants.

More information can be found here.

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