CNIPA's continuing cracking down on malicious IP agencies

The CNIPA announced second batches of representative cases at the links below:

https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2023/12/9/art_53_188959.html

https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2023/12/11/art_53_188970.html

Malicious behaviors include the following:

  • Revising decision to grant to include RMB1000/1200 registration fee (There is no registration fee for patents now, only stamp tax. The purpose of such revisions may be to get RMB1000/1200 more from the applicant?......)
  • Bribery to gain assistance in applying for patent subsidies, and "fabricating utility models" to obtain award funding.
  • Filing numerous (1537 to be specific) abnormal patent applications.
  • Filing blind for applicants, and filing with no actual supervision of work from non-qualified patent attorney, which is considered by the CNIPA to be actually leasing out patent attorney practicing license by the CNIPA.
  • Lack of management resulting in missing restoration deadline.
  • Acting for conflicting parties at the same time.

I am just reporting based on the CNIPA announcements......

SFTZ Opening-up Overall Plan

The plan is available at:

https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/202312/content_6918914.htm

This plan covers various aspects of the SFTZ, including employment, social security, financial services, telecommunication, and so on. Naturally, intellectual property is also included, with interesting articles as below:

  • Article 39 specifies that trademark applications from applicants of SFTZ should be classified according to the Nice Classification. This is interesting as Chinese trademarks are further classified to sub-class (which many foreign trademark owners have "interesting" experiences). The Chinese Trademark Office always claim that the Chinese sub-class system works under the Nice Classification. It is unclear from this plan whether applicants of SFTZ could be exempted from the Chinese sub-class system (may be not?).
  • Article 42 stipulates that for patent applications without examination decision within 18 months, the application information should be published, and the authority (the CNIPA I suppose) could "publish the application results according to the application" (These are my direct English translations from the original Chinese wordings). It is not clear why this article has these requirements, notwithstanding the following:

1) Any Chinese application is required by Article 34 of the Chinese Patent Law to be published 18 months after filing (unless fails preliminary examination, or is subject to secrecy order due to national security).

2) The application results would be published once an application is granted.

I am scratching my head. Any enlightenment will be welcomed. I hope the above Articles were not drafted without asking the CNIPA......

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