What's Patent examiners like in China National Intellectual Property Administration Patent Office?

Patent office examiners are under great pressure, but they are passionate and enjoy dealing with new technical solutions every day. The examiner's main job is to examine whether the patent application documents submitted by the applicant meet the statutory requirements and decide whether to authorize them.

After the patent application is submitted, in the substantive examination stage of the invention patent and the preliminary examination stage of the utility model and design patent, the patent office examiner will examine whether the substantive contents of the patent application documents conform to the provisions of the Patent Law and its detailed rules for implementation. If not, a notice of examination opinions will be issued, and the applicant needs to state his opinions on the defects or problems pointed out by the examiner or modify the application documents accordingly. If no reply is made within the time limit, the patent application shall be deemed to have been withdrawn.

In the process of patent application examination, the applicant may receive the notice of examination opinions many times, and the reply to the notice of examination opinions will directly affect the process and result of patent application. If the defects or problems still exist after repeated statements or amendments, the patent application will be rejected.

The contents of patent examination mainly include:

Whether it conforms to the definition of invention stipulated in Article 2 of the Patent Law, that is, the new technical scheme proposed for the product, method or its improvement.

Whether it conforms to the provisions of Article 5 of the Patent Law, that is, whether the subject matter of the patent application violates national laws, social morality or harms social public interests;

Whether it conforms to the provisions of Article 25 of the Patent Law, that is, whether the subject matter of the patent application belongs to the scope where the patent right cannot be granted;

Whether it conforms to the practicability stipulated in the fourth paragraph of Article 22 of the Patent Law;

Whether the specification fully discloses the subject matter requested for protection in accordance with the requirements of the third paragraph of Article 26 of the Patent Law;

Whether the technical scheme defined in the claim has novelty and creativity as stipulated in the second and third paragraphs of Article 22 of the Patent Law;

Whether the patent claim clearly and concisely defines the scope of protection according to the fourth paragraph of Article 26 of the Patent Law, and whether the independent claim expresses a complete technical scheme to solve technical problems;

Whether the modification of the application documents conforms to the provisions of Article 33 of the Patent Law and Article 51 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation;

Whether the divisional application complies with paragraph 1 of Article 43 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law;

Whether there is no oneness in the claim;

Inventions and creations completed by relying on genetic resources also need to examine whether the application documents comply with the provisions of Article 26, paragraph 5, of the Patent Law.