On December 10, 2025, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the Opinions on Strengthening the Operation and Management of Intellectual Property Protection Centers and Rapid Rights Protection Centers to Promote High-Quality and Collaborative Intellectual Property Protection (国家知识产权局关于加强知识产权保护中心和快速维权中心运行管理 高质量推进知识产权快速协同保护工作的意见). The Opinions aim to “promote the high-standard construction and high-quality operation of national-level intellectual property protection centers and rapid enforcement centers, effectively supporting the development of a unified national market and boosting high-quality economic growth.” One of the main goals of the Opinions is to improve operation of pre-examination centers that provide rapid pre-filing examination of patent applications and, if approved at a center, rapid grant at CNIPA.  Note that these rapid grants of Chinese patents from these centers and subsequent Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) filings at the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) might be one of the reasons behind the recently announced slowdown of examination of PPH applications at the USPTO.

• Strengthen the review and periodic verification of filings of innovative entities registered by the Protection Center and the Rapid Rights Protection Center, and eliminate entities that do not meet the requirements and lack actual business operations. Strengthen the pre-registration management of agencies by the Protection Center and the Rapid Rights Protection Center, and promote agencies with good credit and high service levels to provide high-level services to filing entities. Strengthen the dynamic management of agencies with a large number of or serious abnormal patent application agency activities and those operating with dishonesty.
• Strengthen Patent Pre-examination Quality Management. Strictly manage pre-examination cases at the source, preventing low-quality patent applications from entering the fast-track examination channel through measures such as rigorous review of the eligibility of filing entities, enhanced tracking of leads, and intelligent analysis and identification. Research and formulate patent pre-examination business guidelines and strengthen the standardization of patent pre-examination. Strengthen pre-examination quality monitoring, improve and refine pre-examination quality monitoring indicators, and regularly publish pre-examination quality evaluation reports and guiding cases. Strengthen the linkage between patent examination and pre-examination quality management, and enhance the monitoring and management of invention patent application examination quality after pre-examination qualification. Establish a regional mechanism for regular analysis and feedback guidance on patent pre-examination quality. Establish a linkage mechanism between pre-examination quality and pre-examination field verification.
• Strengthening the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Foreign-Related Areas. Collect information on entities engaged in foreign trade related to patent pre-examination and registration, and analyze key service needs. Actively promote the organic integration of patent pre-examination and the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), and support and guide registered entities in rapidly deploying overseas intellectual property rights. Strengthen regional coordination in guiding responses to overseas intellectual property disputes and enhance the dissemination of overseas intellectual property information. Establish monitoring mechanisms for key areas such as Section 337 investigations, cross-border e-commerce intellectual property disputes, and overseas trademark squatting, providing timely risk warnings and professional and efficient guidance services for responding to overseas disputes to enterprises within the region. Encourage various types of social capital to establish overseas rights protection-related funding projects and provide rights protection subsidies to SMEs. Support the National Overseas Intellectual Property Dispute Response Guidance Center in coordinating the resources and needs of local branches, strengthening the monitoring of overseas intellectual property disputes, and establishing a rapid response mechanism. Improve the communication mechanism with foreign enterprises operating in China and foreign-invested enterprises, listen to their opinions and suggestions on intellectual property protection, and respond to their demands.
• Improve and refine the talent evaluation and incentive mechanism, and pilot the establishment of a patent pre-examiner grading system. Promote the optimization of performance indicators for the participation of personnel from the protection center and rapid rights protection center in the local intellectual property professional title evaluation.

Full text in Chinese available here