CNIPA fully accelerate patent examination, further enhance benefit of PPH

View: 40     Date: 2024-04-12 03:35

On April 10, 2024, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) issued the Annual Work Guidelines on Promoting High-quality Development of Intellectual Property (2024), which pointed out that one of the main goals of intellectual property work in 2024 is: to continue improve the quality and efficiency of intellectual property examination, to complete the examination mechanism supporting the research of key core technologies and the high-quality development of key industries, and to reduce the average examination period of invention patents to about 15.5 months.

The next day, the official Wechat account of CNIPA released the article that, in order to further improve the user experience of the Patent Examination Highway (PPH), CNIPA announced that it had joined the "PPH Improvement Initiative" in cooperation with the five Intellectual property offices of China, the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea. In 2024, the average period of PPH's first examination opinion notice and the average period of PPH's reply to the applicant's response are set at 3 months, so as to provide PPH users with a more predictable examination cycle.

With the increasing speed of technology iteration, especially in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and consumer electronics, rapid grant of patent right has a significant impact on innovation protection and patent value, and these measures will further enhance the significance of filing patent applications in China and obtaining patent protection in China.