Ms. Zhong Jing, executive director of Dragon IP, delivered a welcome speech on behalf of Dragon's board of directors and general manager, and reviewed the cooperation, exchanges and friendship between Dragon and JIPA over the years. On behalf of the JIPA delegation, Mr. Musashi Okamoto expressed his gratitude to Dragon IP for the warm welcoming.
Subsequently, the two parties discussed the newly revised contents of the Guidelines for Patent Examination that took effect on April 1, 2017.
JIPA and Dragon IP have always maintained a good cooperative relationship. The delegation expressed that through this study meeting, they had an in-depth understanding of the revised content which would be of great help to future work.
The relevant amendments to the Guidelines for Patent Examination implemented on April 1 include:
If a claim relating to business model comprises both business rules and methods and technical features, the claim shall not be excluded from obtaining patent rights in accordance with Article 25 of the Patent Law.
It is further clarified that "computer program itself" is different from "inventions involving computer programs", and it is allowed to draft claims in the method of "medium + computer program process".
It is clarified that the components of a device claim may include programs;
"Function Module" is amended to "Program Module".
When judging whether the specification achieves full disclosure, the original "Examples and experimental data supplemented after the application date shall not be considered" is amended to "The experimental data supplemented after the application date shall be examined by the examiner. The technical effects proved by the supplementary experimental data shall be obtainable by those skilled in the art from the disclosure of the patent application.”
6. Appropriately lift up limitations upon the amendment method of patent documents in the examination of invalidation requests. It is allowed to add one or more technical features recited in other claims to a claim so as to narrow the scope of protection; allow correction of obvious errors in the claims.
7. In view of the aforementioned consideration of moderately avoiding limitations upon patent document amendment, it is clarified that the requestor shall add reasons for invalidation within the time limit specified by the Patent Reexamination Board for the amended content, and specify the added reasons for invalidation within the time limit.
8. Increase the content that allows public inspection and copying, and expand the scope of public inspection and copying to the substantive examination procedure, including notifications, search reports and decision letters issued to applicants.
9. The relevant provisions on the suspension procedure are adaptively amended. It is clarified that where the People's Court requires the Patent Office to assist in the execution of the property preservation and the execution of the suspension procedure, the Patent Office shall suspend the relevant procedure in accordance with the property preservation period specified in the civil ruling and the execution assistance notice; where the people's court requests that property preservation measures continue to be taken after the expiration of the suspension period, a notice of assistance in execution of the preservation shall be sent to the Patent Office before the expiration of the period, and the suspension period shall be renewed upon the review result that it complies with relevant regulations.
