China is a member of the Paris Pact. For China applicants, after applying for a patent in China, they can enjoy the filing date of the earlier application by using the "priority principle" stipulated in the Paris Convention. For inventions and utility models, they can directly apply for patents abroad within 12 months, and for designs within 6 months.
After the expiration of the priority period, if the original application has not been made public, you can still apply for a foreign patent, but you no longer enjoy priority at this time.
2. Apply for foreign patent through PCT.
China joined the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) on 1994 1 month 1. In this way, "one country applies, but many countries are effective". This method is divided into international stage and national stage.
In the international application stage, China applicants can submit their applications in Chinese, and when submitting their applications, they must specify the country (designated country) where the application is valid. The national phase refers to the formalities for entering the national phase within 20 or 30 months from the date of international application (or priority date). Compared with the adoption of the Paris Convention, PCT application can delay the entry into foreign countries by 8 or 18 months, and the payment of foreign phase fees will be delayed accordingly. Obviously, the time for approval will be delayed accordingly.