Legal basis: People's Republic of China (PRC) Patent Law.
Article 1 This Law is formulated for the purpose of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of patentees, encouraging inventions and creations, promoting the application of inventions and creations, improving innovation ability, and promoting scientific and technological progress and economic and social development.
Article 2 Inventions and creations mentioned in this Law refer to inventions, utility models and designs.
Invention refers to a new technical scheme proposed for a product, method or its improvement.
Utility model refers to a new practical technical scheme for the shape, structure or combination of products.
Appearance design refers to a new design that is aesthetically pleasing and suitable for industrial application, which is made on the shape, pattern or their combination of products and all or part of the combination of colors, shapes and patterns.