The China National Intellectual Property Administration insists that quality is the lifeline, theme and hard task of career development, focuses on the practical needs of innovation subjects, continuously optimizes the working mechanism, constantly improves the working measures, and comprehensively promotes the improvement of patent quality.

Accurately serving innovative subjects and promoting the improvement of patent quality is a major issue that the China National Intellectual Property Administration is focusing on.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the implementation of the Patent Law. Over the past 40 years, China's scientific and technological innovation has made rapid progress, and inventions and creations have grown rapidly. According to the latest data released by the China National Intellectual Property Administration, as of May this year, the number of effective invention patents in China has reached 4.97 million, making it a veritable patent power.

"The nearly 5 million invention patents reflect the vigorous creativity of China's innovation subjects, and create unlimited potential for cultivating and developing new quality productivity." Guo Wen, a spokesman of the China National Intellectual Property Administration and director of the Department of Intellectual Property Protection, said recently that the China National Intellectual Property Administration insists that quality is the lifeline, theme and hard task of career development, focuses on the practical needs of innovation subjects, continues to optimize the working mechanism, constantly improves the working measures, and comprehensively promotes the improvement of patent quality.

Improve patent quality

Optimize patent application evaluation indicators

Recently, Chongqing Materials Research Institute Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the Heavy Materials Institute) has received a deep service dedicated to the core technology research and development of high-strength and high conductivity copper alloy conductors for its new energy vehicles.

The Patent Examination Cooperation Center of the Patent Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (hereinafter referred to as the Sichuan Center of the Association) is the supporting unit of this service, which shows the past achievements supporting key core technology research for the Institute of Heavy Materials, and interprets the pre research achievements for the needs of the Institute.

This is the key core technology research and development pilot project for key areas of intellectual property public service support recently launched by Chongqing Intellectual Property Bureau. Supporting the research and development of key core technologies is an important deployment for deepening the implementation of the innovation driven development strategy, and an important move for Chongqing to achieve domestic substitution of key technologies. The Chongqing Intellectual Property Bureau will fully support the project to ensure effective results, "said the relevant person in charge of the Chongqing Intellectual Property Bureau.

It is reported that the Chongqing Intellectual Property Bureau will provide a full process "project accompanying" service for this purpose, and together with the Sichuan Center for Review and Cooperation, will tailor intellectual property service plans for the Heavy Materials Institute, accurately connect with technical research and development needs, continuously track implementation progress, timely study and solve difficult problems, and help the Heavy Materials Institute achieve breakthroughs in key core technology areas, contributing intellectual property strength to the high-quality development of Chongqing's new energy vehicle industry and the improvement of regional innovation capabilities.

This is a microcosm of the intellectual property system providing precise services to enterprises.

Currently, China is transitioning from a major country in introducing intellectual property to a major country in creating intellectual property, and intellectual property work is shifting from pursuing quantity to improving quality. In order to help more innovative achievements be effectively transformed into real productivity, the China National Intellectual Property Administration is committed to promoting the improvement of patent quality in an all-round way.

Changes are quietly occurring: Enterprises, universities, hospitals, and research institutions have been optimizing and adjusting their internal patent management systems, as well as the quantity indicators related to patents in relevant assessment regulations. This is inseparable from the guidance and supervision of the China National Intellectual Property Administration and relevant departments. According to Guo Wen, the China National Intellectual Property Administration strengthened policy guidance, and promoted local optimization and adjustment of patent related index assessment policies from the three aspects of "assessment, evaluation, and funding". In the evaluation policies such as project review, institutional evaluation, enterprise recognition, talent evaluation, professional title evaluation, as well as patent funding awards, it was clearly required that the number of patents should not be directly taken as the main condition. This practice of optimizing patent application evaluation indicators is bound to be positive and effective in improving the quality of patent applications.

Improve review efficiency

Improve the on-demand patent examination mechanism

The quality and efficiency of patent examination are also improving.

The feelings of market entities are the most genuine. In recent years, we have clearly felt that China's patent examination system is constantly improving, the quality of examination continues to improve, the efficiency of examination continues to improve, and the protection of intellectual property rights continues to strengthen. All of these contribute to the source protection of innovative achievements, "said Zhang Yan, the head of the intellectual property department of Novo Nordisk China from Denmark, with deep understanding.

The China National Intellectual Property Administration optimized the on-demand review mechanism. Timely collect diverse and differentiated demands from various innovative entities for patent examination, actively promote "excellent case and examination, on-demand examination", coordinate and allocate high-quality examination resources, provide priority examination, rapid examination, delayed examination, centralized examination and other examination modes as needed, improve examination quality and efficiency, and further enhance the protection quality and efficiency of key core technologies.

According to the data, from January to May this year, the China National Intellectual Property Administration has carried out priority examination of 84000 patents, rapid examination of 116000 patents, delayed examination of more than 9300 patents, and centralized examination of 13 batches, and authorized a batch of high-value patents that can effectively enhance the core competitiveness of the industry, maintain national industrial security, and promote industrial transformation and upgrading.

In addition, the China National Intellectual Property Administration is also studying the application of big model technology in patent examination, promoting the intelligent upgrading of examination work, and further improving the quality and efficiency of examination. In 2023, the China National Intellectual Property Administration launched the patent intelligent examination and retrieval system, and carried out experiments in many business scenarios, such as intelligent semantic retrieval based on invention ideas, image retrieval of local appearance design, automatic clustering and distribution of files, all of which showed good application prospects.

Jiang Tong, Head of the Examination Business Management Department of the Patent Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, said: "In the near future, we will further upgrade the application of artificial intelligence in patent examination, help examiners better understand invention ideas, conduct technical analysis faster, and provide more powerful support for improving quality and efficiency of examination by improving the accuracy of retrieving patent comparison documents." She added that the application of artificial intelligence in patent examination plays a role of assisting examination, and the reasoning results generated by it cannot be directly used as examination opinions.

It is reported that the China National Intellectual Property Administration has also improved the rapid collaborative protection mechanism to improve the accuracy of service docking. Relying on 77 national level intellectual property protection centers, we provide "one-stop" intellectual property protection services for various entities. From January to May this year, the number of three types of patent applications that entered the examination through the pre examination channel of the Protection Center reached 109000, a year-on-year increase of 37.5%, effectively meeting the needs of innovative entities for rapid collaborative protection.

Recently, the China National Intellectual Property Administration has also pushed the national intellectual property protection center to establish a list of precise service filing subjects, further strengthen the active docking of key subjects, and provide precise services such as cross regional patent preliminary review, rights protection assistance, dispute mediation, and overseas dispute response guidance.

Standardize proxy services

Comprehensive governance has made progress in multiple aspects

Improving the quality of patent agency services and providing high-quality professional services is also an important work of the China National Intellectual Property Administration to improve patent quality.

Guo Wen said that the China National Intellectual Property Administration promoted the implementation of the patent agency service procurement policy, guided innovation subjects to not only investigate the organization's qualifications, credit and other contents, but also pay attention to the field background, business level and service experience of the service team when selecting patent agency services, guided the agency services to change from "price competition" to "quality competition", and tamped the middle link of improving patent quality.

The China National Intellectual Property Administration has carried out the "blue sky" action against the agency industry for seven consecutive years, which has played an important role in purifying the development environment of the agency industry and promoting the healthy development of the agency. Wang Peizhang, Director of the Intellectual Property Promotion Department of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, revealed that the emphasis on comprehensive governance this year has made phased progress in many aspects.

In terms of investigating and handling major cases, the China National Intellectual Property Administration has organized relevant local authorities to investigate and handle 12 key institutions in a centralized manner, and 4 have filed cases, according to relevant clues such as fraudulent use of enterprise information, forged official seal documents, and fabricated patents in violation of regulations. For some individuals suspected of forging official seals, they are being transferred to the public security organs for strict punishment.

In terms of regulating the agency of abnormal patent applications, the China National Intellectual Property Administration will focus on the rectification of the 35 agencies found to have a large number of abnormal applications, and propose to suspend business, revoke and other penalties. 65 relevant institutions have been investigated in various regions, and warnings, fines, and other penalties are planned to be imposed separately.

In terms of centralized cleaning of non-standard business solicitation behavior, 89 clues of improper marketing behavior such as "package authorization" and impersonation of official names discovered during daily supervision were investigated and guided by relevant departments to conduct centralized cleaning within a specified period of time for 10 platform enterprises. A patent and trademark agency business marketing prohibition and restriction lexicon was sent to promote the establishment of a normalized review mechanism and effectively fulfill platform responsibilities.

In terms of comprehensively strengthening daily management, 30 patent agencies and branches that do not meet the establishment conditions will be organized to rectify within a specified period of time and listed in the list of abnormal business operations. Strengthen the annual report review of patent agencies, and list 156 institutions that have not implemented the annual report system in the list of abnormal business operations. Conduct investigations into over 50 institutions suspected of obtaining practice licenses through concealing true information and fraudulent means.

Patent agency is an important link in transforming innovative achievements into patent rights, as well as a bridge connecting inventors and examiners. High quality patent agency is an important guarantee for supporting the high-quality development of the patent industry, "said Zhao Jianjun, Secretary General of the All China Association of Patent Agents. In recent years, the scale of the patent agency industry has continued to grow, with a total of 6231 patent agencies and 41026 practicing patent agents nationwide, and an invention patent agency rate of over 94%.

As an industry organization, the Proxy Association has always adhered to the purpose of enhancing industry service capabilities, regulating industry order, and meeting the needs of innovative entities. By strengthening industry guidance and self regulatory supervision, and enhancing cooperation with government supervision, it promotes the high-quality development of the patent agency industry, "said Zhao Jianjun.