He Jing, Jerry Xia
February 3 was the deadline for the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China to accept the public comments on the new version of the proposed Draft Amendments to the Patent Law (“the Draft”). This new draft is the result of the first reading at the end of December by the standing committee. The 2nd reading of the Draft is expected to be in April 2019. The final version may be approved in June at the earliest.
While the NPC is reviewing the comments, let us analyse what are possible changes to come. Compared to the earlier version, the Draft has eliminated some provisions that generated intense discussions, e.g., rules related to administrative enforcement on repeated infringement matters, some special rules on service invention, and secondary infringement etc. The Draft has introduced a new provision on patent term extension for innovative pharmaceutical drugs, among other notable points.
Authored by He Jing <hejing@anjielaw.com> , Jerry Xia <jerryxia@anjielaw.com> , at AnJie Law Firm