SIPO Amended Patent Examination Guidelines on Examination of Novelty of Utility Model and Design

State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) issued Decision for Amending the Guidelines for Patent Examination with respect to the preliminary examination of utility model and design patent applications.

This Decision is made for a purpose of improving the quality of utility model and design patents. With the amendment, during the preliminary examination, the examiner may act more actively to seek for prior art or design through or not through search, thus determines whether a utility model or design patent application is obviously lack of novelty based on the information obtained. 

The Decision has entered into force from October 15, 2013.

(Source: SIPO)