Fourth amendment to Patent Law aims to increase damages and more

Q : Please briefly describe the Patent Law amendment currently being considered.

A: The State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) published the draft amendment to the Patent Law for public comment on 1 April. Once passed, this will be the fourth time that a major amendment has been made to the Patent Law since its adoption. Based on experience, the Patent Law undergoes a relatively major revision once every eight years on average. The previous amendment was made in 2009, and the current amendment accordingly falls within our range of expectation.

Amending the Patent Law was included in the first tier items of the five-year legislative plan of the National People’s Congress (NPC), and it is anticipated that it will be completed within the term of the current NPC.

Q: How wide is the amendment’s scope? What is its objective?

A: The current amendment touches upon a total of 30 articles of the Patent Law: 18 existing articles have been revised, 11 new articles have been added and one article has been dropped. One new chapter entitled “Exploitation and Application of Patents” was added. According to SIPO, the objective of the current amendment is to address such issues existing in patent practice in China as the difficulty in adducing evidence, inadequate damages, long timeframes for patent protection, high costs, low efficiency, etc.

Wu Li and He Jing are senior consultants at AnJie Law Firm