The patent application number is represented by 12 digits, including the application year number, application category number and application serial number. From left to right, the number 1-4 in the patent application number indicates the year when the patent application was accepted, the number 5 indicates the type of the patent application, and the number 6- 12 (***7) indicates the serial number of the application, indicating the relative order of accepting the patent application. Every Arabic numeral used in the patent application number is decimal.
In the process of patent application, before obtaining the patent authorization, the patent number published by the State Patent Office indicates that the patent has been accepted.
Patent publication number, also known as patent contribution number, consists of "country number+classification number+serial number+identification number", such as CN 1340998A, which stands for China No.340998 invention patent.