Amended Patent Act will enter into force on November 1, 2019 - 2019.10.28

The amendments to the Patent Act promulgated on May 1, 2019 will come into force on November 1, 2019. The main points of the amended act include: the term of protection of a design patent will extend to 15 years from 12 years; an applicant may file a request for division of patent application within three months upon receiving the approval decision of an examination or reexamination, and such a rule also applies to utility model patent applications; a request of invalidation should provide invalidation reasons or evidence within three months and no reviews will be made beyond this time period (also, there are time limits for patentees to file post-grant amendment requests during invalidation proceedings); there is a new time period allowed for utility model patentees to file post-grant amendment requests, and post-grant amendments to utility model patent will have to go through substantive examination rather than formality examination.

Transitional provisions for the implementations of the amendments are as follows – please be aware of the differences:

1. Extension of the period of design patent protection

• The term of protection of a design patent will still be 12 years if a design expires on the date of implementation of the amendments.

• The term of protection of a design patent will automatically extend to 15 years if its right is valid on the date of implementation of the amendments.

Amended Patent Act will enter into force on November 1, 2019

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