When applying for a patent for invention-creation that involves national security and needs to be kept confidential, all units in the national defense system shall submit it to the patent institution established by the competent department of national defense science and technology. The Patent Office will examine these applications and give its opinions. Other patent applications shall be filed directly with the Chinese Patent Office.
When the applicant applies for a confidential patent or requests a confidentiality review in accordance with the relevant confidentiality provisions of the state, it shall indicate "√" in the column of "Confidentiality Request" in the request. After accepting such patent applications, the Patent Office will handle the applications in accordance with confidential procedures. An application for a patent for invention-creation that requires confidential examination shall be forwarded to the ministries, commissions and bureaus of the State Council or the head office directly under the jurisdiction of the industry for examination.
The above-mentioned competent authorities shall, within 4 months from the date of receiving the above-mentioned application documents, examine whether the application needs to be kept confidential and notify the Patent Office of the examination results. An application for a patent for invention-creation that needs to be kept confidential after examination by the competent department shall be treated as a confidential patent by the Patent Office, and the applicant shall be notified. An application for a patent for invention-creation that does not need to be kept confidential shall be examined and handled by the Patent Office in accordance with the examination and approval procedures for general patent applications, and the applicant shall be notified.
It should be noted that only the invention patent request has the column of "Confidentiality Request". An application for a patent for utility model or design cannot make a request for confidentiality.