On December 21, 2023, China’s State Council released the Amended Implementing Regulations of the Patent Law (国务院关于修改《中华人民共和国专利法实施细则》的决定). The Implementing Regulations explain how several provisions of China’s amended Patent Law of 2021 will be implemented and will become effective January 20, 2024.

Highlights include:

• elimination of the 15-day mail delay in calculating most deadlines;
• restoration of priority rights;
• up to 6 months for a secrecy review decision (similar to the US foreign filing license requirement);
• good faith requirement for patent application filings including a maximum 100,000 RMB fine for violating the requirement;
• a combination of dotted and solid lines may be used for partial designs;
• applicants can claim domestic priority for a design from an invention or utility model application;
• similarly, invention patent applications can domestic priority from a utility model and vice versa;
• applicants may request delayed examination of patent applications;
• evaluation reports for utility models and designs will be public;
• patent term adjustment must be requested within 3 months from grant and is calculated as follows:
  a. after 4 years from application date; and
  b. after 3 years from the date of filing the request for examination; and
  c. minus the following unreasonable delay from the applicant
  • Failure to respond to a Notice (e.g., office action) within the specified time limit.
  • Delay for examination has been requested;
  • Incorporation by reference has been invoked;
  • other unreasonable delays by the applicant;
• patent term extension for pharmaceutical patents is calculated by deducting 5 years from the interval between the date of filing of the patent application and date of licensing of the drug;
• required inventor remuneration can include equity, options, dividends, etc.;
• minimum inventor remuneration is raised to 4,000 RMB for invention patent and 1,500 RMB for design and utility model.

The full text of amendments and implementing regulations is available here (Chinese only).