Article 44 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law stipulates:
The term "preliminary examination" as mentioned in Articles 34 and 40 of the Patent Law refers to examining whether the patent application has the documents and other necessary documents specified in Article 26 or 27 of the Patent Law, and whether these documents conform to the prescribed format, and examining the following matters:
(1) Whether the application for a patent for invention obviously falls under the circumstances stipulated in Articles 5 and 25 of the Patent Law, whether it does not conform to the provisions of Articles 18, 19, paragraph 1 and 20 of the Patent Law or Article 16 and 26, paragraph 2 of these Rules, and whether it obviously does not conform to the provisions of Articles 2, 26, paragraph 5, 31, paragraph 1 and 33 of the Patent Law or Articles 17 to 21 of these Rules;
(2) Whether the application for a patent for utility model obviously falls under the circumstances stipulated in Articles 5 and 25 of the Patent Law, whether it does not conform to the provisions of Articles 18, 19, paragraph 1 and 20 of the Patent Law or Articles 16 to 19 and 21 to 23 of these Rules, and whether it obviously does not conform to the provisions of Article 2, paragraph 3, paragraph 2 and paragraph 4 of Article 22, paragraph 3 and paragraph 4 of Article 26 and Article 31 of the Patent Law.
(3) Whether the application for a patent for design obviously falls under the circumstances specified in Article 5 and Item (6) of Paragraph 1 of Article 25 of the Patent Law, whether it does not conform to the provisions of Article 18 and Paragraph 1 of Article 19 of the Patent Law or Articles 16, 27 and 28 of these Rules, and whether it obviously does not conform to Paragraph 4 of Article 2, Paragraph 1 of Article 23, Paragraph 2 of Article 27, Paragraph 2 of Article 31, Article 33 or this Patent Law.
(4) Whether the application documents comply with the provisions of Article 2 and Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of these Rules.
The patent administration department of the State Council shall notify the applicant of the examination opinions and ask him to state his opinions or make corrections within a specified time limit; If the applicant fails to reply within the time limit, his application shall be deemed to have been withdrawn. If, after the applicant has stated his opinions or made corrections, the administrative department for patent in the State Council still considers that it does not meet the requirements listed in the preceding paragraph, it shall reject it.