Utility Model Patent: A Fast and Powerful Tool for Protecting Inventions in China

In the 2007 Chint v. Schneider case, a Chinese court awarded an unprecedented sum of CNY334 million (US$53m) in damages in a patent infringement lawsuit. The patent in this case was a utility model patent, which is not examined on its substance under the PRC Patent Law and is often overlooked by the foreign IP rights owners. Foreign applicants often apply for invention patents, rather than utility model patents in China. According to statistics from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), Chinese applicants account for 99.4% of utility model patent applications in China.

The following introduces the parallel filing rule ...