1. Guidelines for Patent Examination was revised and entered into force on 1 January 2026 in China. Major changes include:
i) clarify the definition of plant varieties, expand the scope of patentable subjects;
ii) increase consideration and judgment regarding AI ethics, provide examples of inventive examination, and clarify the requirements for drafting AI related applications;
iii) add special provisions for the examination of bitstream patent applications;
iv) for same-day “one invention, two filings”, only the abandonment of the already-granted utility-model patent can pave the way for granting the corresponding invention patent;
v) clarify that features in the claims that do not contribute to solving technical problems generally do not make a technical solution inventive;
vi) clarify that request for invalidation will not be accepted if the request does not reflect the true intention of the requester.
Link: https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2025/11/13/art_66_202561.html
2. CNIPA will no longer accept electronic patent documents in any format other than XML.
Starting from 1 January 2026 (inclusive), any patent application, request for re-examination, request for invalidation, or related procedural act submitted electronically must be filed in XML format.
Link: https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2025/11/12/art_75_202551.html
3. Impact of Failing to Claim a Known Technical Solution on the Determination of Equivalent Infringement - Case (2021) Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Zhong No. 192
Where a patentee, when drafting the application, knowingly omits a technical solution from the claims, and a person skilled in the art, after reading the claims and the description, would understand that the patentee clearly does not intend to protect that omitted solution, the solution should generally not be brought back into the scope of protection under the doctrine of equivalents.
Link: https://ipc.court.gov.cn/zh-cn/news/view-4835.html
4. Damages for “offering for sale” - Case Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Zhong 1658 & 1659
Liability for offering for sale is not contingent on an actual sale. Once the offer is made, it may depress or distort the proper pricing of the patented product and diminish or delay the patentee’s commercial opportunities. The infringer must therefore not only cease the unlawful conduct and reimburse the patentee’s reasonable enforcement costs, but also pay damages. If the patentee is unable to quantify the precise loss resulting from the mere offer for sale, the court may—based on the specific circumstances and the evidence of the infringing conduct—award statutory damages.
Link: https://ipc.court.gov.cn/zh-cn/news/view-5018.html
5. Infringement relief based on the utility-model patent filed on the same day as the invention application after the invention application has been rejected - Case Zui Gao Fa Zhi Min Zhong No. 699
Where an applicant files both an invention and a utility-model application for the same technical solution on the same day, and the invention application is finally rejected for lack of novelty or inventive step over a single prior-art document in the same technical field, the courts will not uphold any subsequent claim for damages or other infringement relief based on the granted utility-model patent.