https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2021/10/26/art_75_170997.html
This was published yesterday on 26 October 2021 at the link above, at which the Chinese draft regulations is available. This follows with the pilot program announced by CNIPA on 25 December 2020 (a Christmas gift?) in some places including Beijing and Jiangsu (https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2020/12/25/art_551_155855.html?xxgkhide=1)
Some main points are as below (texts below in italics are my own thoughts):
- The foreign patent agency should have practiced in patent for at least 5 years in its own country.
- The foreign patent agency should have have at least 10 patent professionals qualified to practice on patents in its own country. (Would both US patent attorney and patent agent qualify? What about in a jurisdiction where there is no formal patent attorney qualification, like Hong Kong?)
- Article 16(1) explicitly restricts the representative office is to provide consultancy service on patent agency work at the country or jurisdiction (if more than one, could be multiple I believe) where the foreign patent agency is authorized to practice.
- Article 16 (last paragraph) also explicitly prohibits the representative office to practice Chinese matters, including Chinese patent agency and legal work. (However, this does not prevent the foreign patent agency from finding enough Chinese patent attorneys and/or attorney at law to open shop for doing Chinese patent agency and/or legal work. Of course, the internal management and risk issues would be the internal problem of the foreign patent agency).
This could be another gesture from China showing that they are continuing with their opening up policy.
While this could be attractive to foreign patent firms to open their representative offices in China, similar measures have already existed for foreign law firms. However, I have heard many stories that opening a representative office has to go through a lot of red tapes, and take a long time (my friend Tom Moga may have something to say about this).
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