The successful beginning of publication of Chinese patent documents

Abstract

The Chinese Patent Office published its first issue of the Official Gazette of Patents and pamphlets of applications on 10 September 1985. Adding the new contents in the Chinese patent documents to the treasure house of world patent information will benefit China and the rest of the world as well. Some explanations on the newly published Chinese patent documents are briefly introduced in the article. After the entering into force of the Chinese Patent Law on 1 April 1985, expectation from both domestic enthusiasts and friends abroad has been centering on such questions as: Can the Chinese Patent Law run smoothly? When will the Chinese Patent Office have their patent documents published? What sort of information will be disclosed in the first batch of publications? Some answers to these doubts were provided at a news conference held by the Chinese Patent Office on 10 September 1985. On that day, the Chinese Patent Office published its first issue of Official Gazette of Patents for Inventions (Fig. 1), Official Gazette of Patents for Utility Models (Fig. 2) and Official Gazette of Patents for Designs (Fig. 3) annoucing the decision to publish the first batch of its applications for patents for inventions examined by the Patent Office in conformity with the prescriptions of Article 39 of the Patent Law, and the first batch of its applications for patents for utility models and designs after preliminary examination in conformity with the prescriptions of Article 40 of the Patent Law. On that day, the Chinese Patent Office did simultaneously publish the unesamined applications for inventions, the examined applications for patents for inventions and the applications for patents for utility models. It is an important step for the Chinese Patent Office to publish the applications for patents before patents are granted and to let anyone have the chance to file an opposition to them, in order that the quality of examination and granting of patents may be assured. In fact, the Chinese Patent Office describes the opposition procedure as a good way to combine the examination of patents by professionals and by the public. If no oppositions are filed in conformity with the Law, patent right shall be granted to all these announced applications for patents. Up to the end of September 1985, the Chinese Patent Office had all together received 10 751 applications for patents, of which 6602 are applications for patents for inventions taking 61.4% of the total, 3686 are applications for patents for utility models, taking 34.3% of the total, and 463 are applications for patents for designs, taking 4.3% of the total. Of the total number of applications for patents, 7138 are filed by Chinese nationals, taking 66.4% of the whole number, and 3613 are filed by foreigners, taking 33.6% of the whole number. The publication of patent documents signifies that China has taken a substantive step forward in the implementation of the Patent Law. From that day on, China began to have its own patent documents which will form a complete set of informative and publicly available technical files, and searching was dependent on the text alone for selection. This difference alone may account for much of the difference in the outcomes. This issue will be analyzed more fully when the USPTO conducts more comprehensive analyses in the course of the evaluation of its Automated Patent System.