On March 11, 2021, CNIPA announced its statement to crack down on "abnormal" patent applications and specifically define abnormal patent application behaviors.

The following types of behaviors are referred to as abnormal patent application behaviors:

  1. Simultaneously or successively submitting multiple patent applications that are obviously the same in invention-creation content, or are essentially formed by simple combinations and changes of different invention-creation features or elements;
  2. The submitted patent application contains fabricated, forged or altered inventions and creations, experimental data or technical effects, or plagiarism, simple replacement, patchwork of existing technology or existing designs, etc.;
  3. The invention-creation of the submitted patent application is obviously inconsistent with the actual research and development capabilities and resource conditions of the applicant and inventor;
  4. The invention-creation content of multiple patent applications submitted is mainly generated randomly by computer programs or other technologies;
  5. The invention-creation of the submitted patent application is an invention deliberately formed for the purpose of circumventing patentability examination, which is obviously inconsistent with the common sense in technical improvement or design, or has no actual protection value, is inferior, piles up, or unnecessarily narrows the scope of protection, or has no significance for performing any search and examination;
  6. In order to evade the supervision measures against abnormal patent applications, multiple patent applications that are substantially associated with a specific entity, individual or address are scattered, submitted sequentially or in different places;
  7. Buying or selling patent application rights or patent rights not for the exploitation of patented technologies, designs or other legitimate purposes, or falsely changing inventors or designers;
  8. Patent agencies, patent attorneys, or other institutions or individuals acting as agents, inducing, instigating, helping others or conspiring with them to conduct the behaviors of various types of abnormal patent applications;
  9. Other abnormal patent applications and related behaviors that violate the principle of good faith and disrupt the normal order of patent work.

With government subsidies for filings being removed by mid-year 2021 and subsidies for patent grant being removed by 2025, it will be interesting to watch the filing statistics in 2021 and the following years.

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