1. Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)
When a corresponding application of a Chinese patent receives a favorable search report from a patent office recognized by CNIPA, and when the claims of the two applications fully correspond, applicants can request accelerated examination of their application by the CNIPA without the need to pay additional fees.
Based on our experience, the first office action is typically received within 2-3 months after filing a PPH request, and the overall process from PPH request to final disposition takes approximately 6-12 months.
2. Patent Prioritized Examination
The prioritized examination of patents must be requested when the conditions for commencing substantive examination are met, after filing a request for substantive examination and paying the corresponding fees. Patent applications are entitled to Prioritized Examination if they:
1) Involve national key development industries such as energy conservation and environmental protection, new generation information technology, biology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, new materials, new energy vehicles, and smart manufacturing;
2) Involve industries encouraged by the provincial and district-level municipal governments;
3) Involve the Internet, big data, cloud computing and other fields and the technology or product obsolescence is fast;
4) The patent applicant has made preparations for implementation or has begun implementation, or there is evidence that others are implementing their inventions;
5) The patent application was first filed in China and then filed in a foreign country; or
6) Of great significance to national interests or public interests need to be reviewed first.
In our experience, patent applications submitted for prioritized examination typically receive the first office action within 1-1.5 months after approval of prioritized examination, and the process from prioritized examination request to final disposition takes 6-12 months.
3. Pre-Examination
The pre-examination system is a mechanism newly introduced by CNIPA to accelerate the examination process for qualified applications, compressing the pending period for Chinese patent applications from 22 months to 6 months.
However, it is worth noting that for patent applications undergoing preliminary examination at the Intellectual Property Protection Center, in response to the first and second office actions issued by the patent office, applicants must submit responses within 10 and 5 working days respectively. If, the applicant still does not qualify for granting after responding to the second office action, the patent application will automatically switch to the regular application procedure.
4. Others
For applications that do not meet the above conditions, we offer additional strategies to expedite the process for the clients, including requesting for substantive examination at the time of filing, early publication, internal acceleration for translation and office action responses. These measures are tailored to ensure the quickest processing time and to secure the maximum benefits for our clients.
