Patent Litigation 2022

1. Intellectual Property Rights and Granting Procedure

1.1 Types of Intellectual Property Rights

Protections of inventions and utility models are both based on statutory law.

1.2 Grant Procedure

For inventions, a deferred substantive examination is stipulated as starting only after filing an examination request, which should be made no later than three years after the initial filing date. On average, one to two official actions may be issued, followed by a final decision. Before issuing a final rejection, the examiner should issue a pre-final rejection (notification of examination results).

After notification of examination results, there is a six-month term in which a response can be made. Criteria for assessment includes industrial applicability, sufficiency of disclosure, novelty and inventive level.