/>iOn May 7, 2025, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the Notice of the State Intellectual Property Office on deepening the “Blue Sky” campaign to strengthen the comprehensive governance of the intellectual property agency industry (国家知识产权局关于深入开展“蓝天”行动 强化知识产权代理行业综合治理的通知). The Blue Sky Campaign is somewhat similar to but more comprehensive than the USPTO’s recent launch of the Patent Fraud Detection and Mitigation Working Group. The Notice states that CNIPA will regulate agency behavior by 1. rectifying the behavior of patent agents that file “abnormal” patent applications including potential referral for criminal prosecution; 2. cracking down on unqualified patent agents; 3. crack down on illegal or irregular behavior of trademark agents; 4. strictly regulate solicitations; 5. rectify IP firms that do not complete licensing requirements; and 6. stop patent agents from renting their patent bar registrations. Further, CNIPA will aim to improve patent agent quality, improve the supervision of the IP firm industry, and increase IP publicity and education.
A translation follows. The original text is available here (Chinese only).
To the Intellectual Property Offices of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and all relevant local centers; all departments of the National Intellectual Property Office, all departments of the Patent Office, the Trademark Office, other directly affiliated units of the Office, and all social organizations:
2025 is the final year for the implementation of the “14th Five-Year Plan for National Intellectual Property Protection and Utilization” and the year for the three-year special action on patent transformation and utilization. In order to strengthen the comprehensive governance of the intellectual property agency industry, improve the supervision system, improve the quality of agencies, and strongly support the work of patent transformation and utilization and intellectual property protection, the National Intellectual Property Administration has decided to continue the “Blue Sky” special rectification action in the intellectual property agency industry in 2025. The relevant matters are hereby notified as follows.
1. Regulate agency behavior and maintain industry order
(I) Concentrate on rectifying the behavior of acting as an agent for abnormal patent applications. A number of cases of acting as an agent for abnormal patent applications will be investigated and dealt with in a concentrated manner to form a high-pressure situation for centralized rectification. Intellectual property management departments in various places should adopt comprehensive measures and implement classified rectification by using various measures such as key inspections, warning talks, talks for rectification, warnings and fines, credit deductions, and self-discipline punishments according to the circumstances; if the circumstances are particularly serious, they should be reported to the National Intellectual Property Administration for handling in a timely manner. It is necessary to strengthen the connection between law enforcement and execution, and those suspected of crimes should be transferred to relevant departments in a timely manner for criminal prosecution. It is necessary to strictly implement the “double supervision” of institutions and personnel.
(II) Severe crackdowns on unqualified patent agents. Those who have a large amount of illegal income, act as agents for abnormal patent applications, deliberately transfer or destroy evidence, or refuse to cooperate with the investigation shall be fined a high multiple or the maximum amount in accordance with the law. At the same time, patent agencies that rent or lend their qualifications shall also be punished.
(III) Severely crack down on illegal and irregular behaviors of trademark agents. Intellectual property management departments in all regions should work with relevant departments to increase the coordination of supervision and law enforcement, and focus on cracking down on behaviors such as malicious preemptive registration of trademarks, hoarding of trademarks, application for registration of trademarks with major adverse effects, and malicious “three withdrawals” [cancellation requests of trademarks for non-use after three consecutive years].
(IV) Strictly regulate the solicitation of patent and trademark agency business. Intellectual property management departments in all regions should increase the intensity of Internet information monitoring, continue to monitor agency business solicitation information and collect evidence of illegal and irregular behaviors. For irregular solicitation of agency business, relevant institutions should be promptly ordered to make rectification within a time limit; for search engines, e-commerce platforms, forums and other Internet platform companies that publish agency business solicitation information, they should be urged to improve their internal screening management system, actively regulate the display content, and promptly shut down illegal agency shops and delete illegal information links.
(V) Strengthen rectification efforts for institutions that do not meet the licensing and filing conditions. Local intellectual property management departments should strengthen daily supervision and filing management of patent agencies and their branches. For patent agencies that do not meet the licensing conditions for a long time, urge them to promptly and properly handle the unfinished business and submit it to the National Intellectual Property Administration for handling.
(VI) Organize a cleanup of patent agents’ “hanging certificates” behavior [renting out patent bar registration numbers]. Organize a comprehensive investigation of patent agents suspected of “hanging certificates”. If patent agencies arbitrarily sign in the name of “hanging certificate” personnel to handle abnormal patent applications, local intellectual property management departments must severely handle them in accordance with laws and regulations.
2. Supply and demand are mutually driven to improve agent quality
(I) Strengthen policy guidance. Local intellectual property management departments should guide relevant units to adjust and improve internal management systems and relevant incentive policies in conjunction with special actions on patent transformation and utilization, and effectively avoid new abnormal patent applications.
(II) Standardize bidding behavior. Local intellectual property management departments should work with government procurement authorities to vigorously promote the “Patent and Trademark Agency Service Government Procurement Demand Standards (Trial)” and the model text of agency engagement contracts, carry out extensive and in-depth publicity activities, and promote state-owned enterprises, institutions, intellectual property power building demonstration units, listed companies, large private enterprises and other innovative entities to refer to and use them, and effectively improve the level of agency procurement and management. It is necessary to guide innovative entities to establish and improve a hierarchical and classified management mechanism for intellectual property agency services, and promote the realization of “high quality and high price” for agency services.
(III) Improve service capabilities. Intellectual property management departments in various regions should supervise and guide patent agencies to improve their internal management systems, improve service quality control mechanisms, implement the patent agent signature responsibility system, and improve their business capabilities such as patent writing, search and analysis, and technical understanding. Guide agencies to strengthen the compliance application of new technologies and improve their professional, digital, and intelligent levels. Encourage patent agencies to establish a service concept oriented towards promoting the industrialization of patents, expand service areas, innovate service models, and provide integrated patent transformation and application solutions. Relying on intellectual property service industry clusters, intellectual property service export bases, etc., we will increase the cultivation of foreign-related intellectual property service agencies, encourage them to conduct business abroad through the establishment of branches and joint operations, and provide high-quality and efficient intellectual property services for overseas enterprises.
III. Improve the working mechanism and strengthen the supervision system
(I) Deepen credit supervision. Intellectual property management departments in various regions should strictly implement the regulations on patent agency credit evaluation management, ensure that credit information is “fully returned” and credit evaluation is “fully evaluated”; strengthen the use of credit evaluation results, refine and improve the local incentives for credit keeping and restrictions on credit breaking, and promote the realization of “one place of credit breaking, restrictions everywhere”. Pilot areas for trademark agency credit evaluation management should organize pilot work in a solid manner, strengthen training and guidance for municipal and county intellectual property management departments, increase publicity and public disclosure of credit results information, and ensure that the pilot work achieves practical results.
(II) Strengthen coordinated supervision. Intellectual property management departments in various regions should further improve the cross-departmental coordination mechanism, and work with relevant departments to carry out joint inspections and joint law enforcement of intellectual property agencies. Continue to improve the cross-regional coordinated supervision mechanism, strengthen information exchange, experience sharing, supervision interaction, and mutual recognition of evaluation, and smooth the working mechanisms such as cross-provincial cooperation, law enforcement assistance, and case transfer. Encourage and support cross-regional exchanges and cooperation in intellectual property agency supervision, and continue to consolidate the national “one chessboard” working situation [Xi Jinping Thought: centralized, coordinated, and strategic governance, emphasizing a holistic view where all parts work together towards a unified national goal]. Strengthen cooperation and coordination with the Intellectual Property Protection Center, promptly inform the Intellectual Property Protection Center of information such as penalties and breach of trust of agencies, and promptly collect clues of illegal and irregular agency behaviors found in patent pre-examination business and deal with them in a coordinated manner.
(III) Innovate supervision methods. Intellectual property management departments in various regions should strengthen smart supervision, make full use of new technologies and tools such as artificial intelligence, collect various information on agencies and practitioners, build a multi-dimensional evaluation system, establish and improve the quality monitoring mechanism of agencies, and promote the transformation of the supervision model from “passive response” to “active prevention” based on “catching problems early and catching small problems”. We should continue to strengthen the publicity of information on agencies and practitioners, facilitate the public to inquire and compare, and promote the realization of the survival of the fittest in the market. We encourage the exploration of the filing of patent agency engagement contracts and other work, actively adopt non-site supervision methods such as remote inspection, and promote the realization of “ubiquitous and non-intrusive” supervision.
(IV) Enhance supervision capabilities. Local intellectual property management departments should organize rotation training for front-line agency supervision case handlers, accelerate the establishment of a database of key case handlers and consulting experts, and consolidate the talent base and professional support for agency supervision and law enforcement. Localities are encouraged to actively promote patent agency entrusted supervision, entrust the supervision functions of provincial patent agencies to the municipal level(districts under the jurisdiction of municipalities directly under the central government), and strengthen grassroots supervision. Localities are encouraged to establish and improve the intellectual property agency supervision regulations and systems, and formulate and issue the administrative penalty discretion benchmarks for intellectual property agencies in their regions in accordance with the law.
IV. Strengthen publicity and education to create a favorable atmosphere
(I) Increase publicity and guidance efforts. Intellectual property management departments in various regions should adhere to the principle of giving equal importance to supervision and law enforcement and publicity and education, and combine various activities such as the “National Intellectual Property Publicity Week”, “Intellectual Property Service Tour”, and “China Brand Day” to strengthen the publicity and implementation of laws and regulations related to intellectual property agency, tell good “industry stories”, and actively publicize the important role of the intellectual property agency industry in serving technological innovation and trademark brand building, promoting the development of new quality productivity, and promoting high-level opening up, so as to enhance the positive image of the industry. Encourage local governments to organize intellectual property agency professional skills competitions, intellectual property agency campus special recruitment and other activities according to local conditions to increase the attractiveness of the agency industry to high-quality talents. Encourage local governments to innovate publicity methods, expand publicity channels, release publicity films for the intellectual property agency industry and short videos of special rectification actions, create a good public opinion atmosphere for combating illegal agency behaviors, and guide the public to improve their identification ability and actively choose high-quality agency services.
(II) Create a good industry atmosphere. Intellectual property management departments in various regions should increase the exposure of warning cases of intellectual property agency, explain the law through cases, popularize the law through cases, and guide agencies to operate in accordance with the law and in good faith. Together with industry organizations, they should carry out self-discipline initiatives and industry style building activities for standardized operations, vigorously promote the list of prohibited practices for patent and trademark agency, and guide agencies to consciously accept social supervision. Organize and carry out professional ethics and professional discipline education for patent agents and trademark agents, strengthen education and training for newly established agencies and first-time practicing patent agents, and continuously enhance practitioners’ sense of responsibility and sense of professional honor.
The National Intellectual Property Administration will continue to strengthen supervision and guidance on the agency supervision work of local intellectual property management departments, organize exchanges and discussions, cross-regional joint supervision and other promotion activities, and regularly report progress and useful experiences.
