Compared with invention patents, utility model patents have different creative requirements in China's patent law. The invention patent requirements have outstanding substantive features and remarkable progress, while the utility model patent requirements have substantive features and progress. For the requirement of "significant progress", the technical effect can basically reach the level of the existing technology, so it is difficult to distinguish and set the specification of "progress", so the low innovation height requirement can only be characterized by "substantive characteristics", that is, the obviousness of the technical scheme.
The Patent Examination Guide sets a difference in the judgment of technical revelation in the third step of the "three-step method", and specially sets two additional conditions of "existing technology field" and "existing technology quantity" for the judgment of technical revelation. In practice, the consideration of the conditions in the prior art field is relatively complicated. In recent years, the industry has been exploring the consideration factors or judgment methods in the existing technical fields, so as to make the application of consideration conditions more objective and the operation more consistent.