On August 6, 2024, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released fee information for requesting patent term compensation and annuities for the term of any granted compensation. Accordingly, CNIPA may now begin processing requests for patent compensation based on the amended patent law passed in 2020. Requests for patent term compensation including patent term adjustments for CNIPA delay and patent term extensions for pharmaceutical patents will cost 200 RMB. Annuities during the extended period will be 8000 RMB/year. CNIPA also confirmed the 15% reduction in annuities for open licensing that was announced earlier by the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission.

Under Chapter 5 of the Implementing Regulations of the Patent Law, patent term adjustment (PTA) must be applied for within 3 months of patent grant. PTA is calculated as follows:

Article 78

For compensation of the patent term provided in accordance with Article 42 Paragraph 2 of the Patent Law, the compensation period shall be calculated based on the actual number of days of unreasonable delay in the authorization process of the invention patent.

The actual number of days of unreasonable delay in the authorization process of the invention patent referred to in the preceding paragraph is the number of days from the date on which four years have elapsed since the filing date of the invention patent application and three years since the date of the request for substantive examination until the date of the announcement of the grant of the patent right, minus the number of days of reasonable delay and the number of days of unreasonable delay caused by the applicant.

The following circumstances are considered reasonable delays:

(i) Delay caused by the patent grant after amendment of the patent application documents in accordance with the provisions of Article 66 of IMR;

(ii) Delay caused by the circumstances stipulated in Articles 103 and 104 of IMR;

(iii) Delay caused by other reasonable circumstances.

For the same applicant who applies for both a utility model patent and an invention patent on the same day for the same invention-creation and is granted the invention patent right in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 4 of Article 47 of IMR, the term of the invention patent right obtained shall not be subject to the provisions of Article 42, Paragraph 2 of the Patent Law.

Article 79

The unreasonable delays caused by the applicant as stipulated in Article 42 Paragraph 2 of the Patent Law include the following circumstances:

(i) Failure to respond within the specified time limit to the notifications issued by the Patent Administration Department of the State Council;

(ii) Application for a delayed examination;

(iii) Delay caused by the circumstances stipulated in Article 45 of IMR;

(iv) Other unreasonable delays caused by the applicant.

For patent term extensions (PTE), patentees must request PTE within 3 month of grant of marketing authorization in China.  PTE is calculated as follows per the Implementing Regulations.

Article 82

The duration of the patent term extension granted in accordance with Article 42 Paragraph 3 of the Patent Law shall be determined by subtracting five years from the number of days between the patent application date and the date on which the new pharmaceutical obtains marketing authorization in China, based on compliance with the stipulations of Article 42 Paragraph 3 of the Patent Law.

The original announcement is available here (Chinese only).