China Revises Its Guidelines for Patent Examination

On May 24, 2005, China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) promulgated a new version of its Guidelines for Patent Examination. The new Guidelines will be effective as of July 1, 2006. This document highlights some major revisions in the new Guidelines.

According to the Guidelines, an early divisional application generally cannot serve as the basis for filing a subsequent divisional application. The only exception is that, if the examiner rejects the early divisional application because some of its claims fail to meet the unity requirement, the applicant may file the subsequent divisional application for the rejected claims. When filing the subsequent divisional application, the applicant should concurrently attach a copy of the office action containing the examiner’s lack of unity rejections.

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