On 31 December, 2019 a new amendment to the Guidelines for
Examination of the Chinese National Intellectual Property
Administration (CNIPA) was announced. The new guidelines, which
come into effect on February 1st, cover inventions with
features that include an algorithm or business rules/methods. Such
features are frequently found in the claims of patent applications
in the field of AI, internet+, big data and block chain.
The Guidelines outline that the examination shall focus on the
claimed solution, that is, the solution defined by the claims.
During examination, the technical features and the algorithmic
features or business rule/method features shall not be separated.
Instead, all the content described in the claims shall be examined
as a whole, and the technical means involved, the technical
problems to be solved, and the technical effects obtained will also
be considered for analysis.
