However, the contents of the comparison document shall not be expanded or reduced at will. In addition, if the comparison document includes drawings, the drawings can also be cited.
However, when quoting the attached drawings, the examiner must pay attention to the fact that only the technical features that can be directly and undoubtedly determined belong to the public content, and the contents speculated in the attached drawings, or the dimensions and their relationships measured from the attached drawings without written explanation, should not be regarded as public content.
Guide to Patent Examination, Part II, Chapter III, Section 2.3, page 156 (pages 2-38).
Relevant documents cited to judge whether an invention or utility model is novel or creative, including patent documents and non-patent documents, are collectively referred to as comparison documents.
Because in the substantive examination stage, examiners generally can't know the technologies that are publicly used at home and abroad or are known to the public in other ways, therefore, the comparative documents cited in the substantive examination procedure are mainly public publications.
Regarding the substantive conditions for granting patent rights, Article 22 of the Patent Law stipulates that inventions and utility models granted patent rights shall be novel, creative and practical.
Extended data:
Writing about claims
The patent claim shall, on the basis of the specification, explain the technical features of the invention or utility model and limit the scope of protection of the patent application. After the patent right is granted, the patent claim is the basis for determining the scope of the patent right of the invention or utility model, and it is also the basis for judging whether others infringe, and it has direct legal effect. Claims are divided into independent claims and dependent claims.
An independent claim should reflect the main technical content of an invention or utility model as a whole, and it is a claim that records the necessary technical features that constitute an invention or utility model.
Dependent claims refer to one or more claims, including all technical features of another (or several) claims, as well as further defined technical features. The writing of the claim must be very strict and accurate, and have a high degree of legal and technical skills.
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