Chinese Patent System

Overview

China’s patent system is administered by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA, 国家知识产权局), the patent administration department of the State Council, which accepts and examines applications uniformly and grants patent rights (Patent Law Art. 3).¹

Chinese law protects three kinds of “invention-creation” (发明创造) — invention patents (发明专利), utility model patents (实用新型专利) and design patents (外观设计专利) — each with different examination depth, inventive-step threshold and term (Art. 2, 42).¹ See chinese-patent-application-writing for the drafting requirements; example applications of BCI / augmented-reality patents are described there.

Legal Framework

Instrument	Status	Key relevance
Patent Law (专利法)	Adopted 1984-03-12; amended 1992, 2000, 2008; 4th amendment 2020-10-17, in force 2021-06-01	Three-class structure, Art. 22/23 criteria, Art. 25 exclusions, Art. 42 terms, PTA/PTE, open licensing (Art. 50–52), good-faith principle (Art. 20), confidentiality examination (Art. 19)
Implementing Regulations (专利法实施细则)	3rd revision 2023-12-11, in force 2024-01-20	Application-document drafting rules (Arts. 20–26, 30–32), preliminary-examination scope incl. obvious-creativity check for utility models (Art. 50), foreign-filing secrecy review (Arts. 7–9)
Patent Examination Guidelines (专利审查指南)	Revised; CNIPA Decision published 2025-11-10 (via MOJ rule database)	AI/algorithm claims (Part II Ch. 9 §§6–7), inventorship — AI cannot be named inventor, subject-matter examples, inventiveness-contributing features must be in claims, bit-stream claims

The Three Classes

	Invention (发明 fāmíng)	Utility model (实用新型 shíyòng xīnxíng)	Design (外观设计 wàiguān shèjì)
Protected subject	New technical solution for a product, process, or improvement (Art. 2.2)	New technical solution for the shape, structure, or combination of a product, fit for practical use (Art. 2.3)	New design of an overall or partial product: shape, pattern, colour, or combinations; aesthetic + industrially applicable (Art. 2.4)
Inventive-step standard	”Prominent substantive features and notable progress” (突出的实质性特点和显著的进步)	Lower: “substantive features and progress” (实质性特点和进步)	Not applied; instead “significantly differs from prior design or combination” (Art. 23.2)
Examination	Preliminary → publication at 18 months → substantive examination on request within 3 years (Arts. 34–35)	Preliminary examination only, but includes an obvious deficiency check against Art. 22 (novelty/inventiveness/practicality) per Regs. Art. 50(2)	Preliminary examination; obvious-difference check per Regs. Art. 50(3)
Term	20 years (Art. 42.1); PTA for unreasonable grant delay (Art. 42.2); PTE ≤5 yrs for new drugs (Art. 42.3)	10 years	15 years (raised from 10 by the 2020 amendment)
Can protect methods?	Yes	No — product only	N/A
Enforcement	Claims define scope (Art. 64); standard infringement	Needs evaluation report when exercised in court/administrative actions (Art. 66)	Evaluation report similarly; scope = shown in drawings/photos, brief description explains (Art. 64)

In each class: the applicant must be first to file (Art. 9.2, first-to-file rule). The same applicant may file both a utility model and an invention patent on the same day for the same invention-creation, then abandon the later-granted utility model when the invention is allowed (Art. 9.1 + Regs. Art. 47) — a common “UM first, then exam” strategy.¹²

Requirements for Grant

Art. 22 — inventions and utility models must have novelty, inventiveness and practical utility (实用性): manufacture/use possible and producing positive effects. Prior art = anything known publicly at home or abroad before the filing date. Novelty is destroyed by the application itself if published after the filing date.¹

Art. 23 — designs must not be prior designs, must differ significantly from prior designs or their combinations, and must not conflict with rights legitimately acquired by others before the filing date.

Grace period (Art. 24): within 6 months before filing, these disclosures do not destroy novelty: (1) first publication in the public interest during a national emergency/extraordinary situation; (2) first exhibition at a Chinese Govt-sponsored/recognised international exhibition; (3) first publication at a prescribed academic/technical conference; (4) disclosure without consent by others. (COVID-era innovation rule.)¹

What Cannot Be Patented (Art. 25)

1. Scientific discoveries; 2. rules and methods for intellectual activity (智力活动的规则和方法); 3. methods for diagnosing or treating diseases (疾病的诊断和治疗方法); 4. animal and plant varieties (production methods除外); 5. nuclear transformation; 6. purely sign-oriented 2D-printing designs.¹

Critical for BCI/AR work:

• Medical-care claims: disease diagnosis/treatment methods are excluded — BCI papers must claim apparatus, systems, signal-processing, device-control or storage media rather than treatment methods. The example patents all follow this pattern (systems, robots, display devices).³
• Algorithms: purely rule-based claims fall under Art. 25(2); an algorithm is patentable only as a “technical solution” (Art. 2.2) — using technical means to solve a technical problem with a technical effect, where algorithm features functionally interact with technical features. The 2025 Guidelines amendment re-codifies this (Part II Ch. 9 §6 with new §6.1.1–6.1.4, examples 1–21) and adds bit-stream claims guidance (Ch. 9 §7).³
• Public-interest/ethics limits (Art. 5): the 2025 amendment adds worked examples — face-recognition marketing systems collecting identities without consent (violates PIPL; excluded), and an autonomous-driving emergency-decision model selecting whom to save by gender/age (violates social morality; excluded).³

Examination and Grant Procedure

1. Filing — e-filing via the CNIPA online system (cponline.cnipa.gov.cn) or written submission to the receiving office / local agency, or via a registered agent; foreign applicants without a CN residence/business office must use a Chinese patent agency (Art. 18; Regs. Art. 18). Filing date = date received (or postmark) (Art. 28).¹⁴
2. Confidentiality examination before any foreign filing of inventions/utility models made in China (Art. 19; Regs. Arts. 7–9) — violation bars a later Chinese grant (Art. 19, last para).
3. Preliminary examination (Art. 34/40); for inventions: published 18 months after filing, earlier on request (Art. 34).
4. Inventions: examiner performs substantive examination only on request within 3 years (Art. 35); office actions/amendments (Art. 37), rejection (Art. 38) then reexamination before the Patent Reexamination Board and appeal to court (Art. 41).
5. Grant: exams concluded → registration, certificate and announcement; rights effective from announcement date (Arts. 39–40). Invalidity can be requested at any time after grant (Arts. 45–47).

Fees (standard official schedule, RMB)

• Filing: invention 900 (+50 printing), utility model 500, design 500; substantive examination: 2,500; priority claim 80 per item; unity restoration 900; surcharges >30 pages (50/page) and >10 claims (150/claim).
• Annuities: invention 1–3 yr 900/yr, 4–6 1,200, 7–9 2,000, 10–12 4,000, 13–15 6,000, 16–20 8,000; utility model/design 1–3 600, 4–5 900, 6–8 1,200, 9–10 2,000. Fee reductions/exemptions for individuals and SMEs; open-licence patents get ongoing annuity reduction (Art. 51.2).^{5 1}
• Verify current amounts against CNIPA’s official schedule before relying on them.

Related

• chinese-patent-application-writing — document sets, specification structure, claim drafting, examples
• retinal-prosthesis-companies — companies whose IP strategy (Stanford CN patents, Axorus licensed patents) follows the same system; patent-landscape analysis
• brain-computer-interface — the BCI domain whose Chinese filings illustrate the Art. 25(2)/25(3) drafting constraints

References

• CNIPA (official English translation, updated 2022-10-13): Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China (2020 4th amendment). ¹
• CNIPA (2023-12-21): 中华人民共和国专利法实施细则(2023年修订) — Implementing Regulations. ²
• Ministry of Justice (2025-11-10): 国家知识产权局关于修改《专利审查指南》的决定 — Guidelines amendment decision. ³
• CNIPA (2020-06-05): 专利申请相关事项介绍 (application matters). ⁴
• CNIPA Announcement No. 244 (2020-11-17): fee standards. ⁵

Footnotes

1. raw/articles/cnipa-patent-law-english-translation.md ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. raw/articles/cnipa-implementing-regulations-2023-chinese.md ↩ ↩²

3. raw/articles/cnipa-guidelines-amendment-decision-nov2025.md ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. raw/articles/cnipa-application-documents-2020.md ↩ ↩²

5. raw/articles/cnipa-fee-standard-announcement-244-2020.md ↩ ↩²