Legal Analysis: According to the provisions of China Patent Law, there are three kinds of patent applications that domestic and foreign applicants can file with China Patent Office: invention patent, utility model patent and design patent application. Inventions and utility models are applications for technical improvement, and applications for invention patents can protect product and method inventions; The application for a patent for utility model does not protect the method invention, but only protects the product and the improvement of its structure; An application for a patent for design only protects the appearance, shape, pattern or their combination and the combination with color of the product. Invention patents are granted for a long time, usually three to five years, but the granted patents are highly stable due to the need for substantive examination procedures; Patents for utility models and designs do not need to go through substantive examination procedures, so they can be granted quickly. Generally speaking, the utility model can be authorized within six to twelve months from the date of application, and the design can be authorized within about six months from the date of application.
Legal basis: Article 36 of the Patent Law of People's Republic of China (PRC). When requesting substantive examination, the applicant for a patent for invention shall submit reference materials related to his invention before the filing date.
Where an application for a patent for invention is filed in a foreign country, the patent administration department of the State Council may require the applicant to submit the information retrieved during the examination of his application in that country or the information on the examination results within a specified time limit; If the application is not submitted within the time limit without justifiable reasons, the application shall be deemed to have been withdrawn.