SIPO Loosens Rules For Claim Amendments In Invalidity Actions And Software Patents

On March 1, 2017, the State Intellectual Property Office of China ("SIPO") of China announced formal amendments to its Patent Examination Guidelines. 

The formal amendments are almost the same as the version SIPO previously published for public comments last year.  The amendments will take effective as of April 1, 2017 (and it remains to be clarified whether and how the amendments will be retrospectively applied to existing patent applications and patents). 

Overall, the amendments are pro-patent owners.  The most important amendments include (1) a rule allowing the patent owner to add to a claim one or more individual features from the other granted claims during an invalidity action, and (2) rules to allow more leeway to draft claims for software patents.