Newsletter
IPO PRACTICE ON UTILITY MODEL TECHNICAL REPORTS
In an announcement dated 19 August 2005, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) stated the following with regard to the timing of applica-tions for technical reports on utility model pat-ents:
Under Article 103 Paragraph 1 of the Patent Act, after the publication of a utility model patent, any person may apply to the patent authority for a technical report as to the granted patent's compliance with the provi-sions of Article 94 Paragraph 1 Subparagraphs 1, 2, and 4, Article 95, and Article 108 (which applies the provisions of Article 31 mutatis mutandis) of the Act. Thus under Article 103, an application for a technical report may be made only after the patent is published.
If an application for a technical report is filed after a decision has been made to grant a pat-ent and the applicant has paid both the cer-tificate fee and the first year's patent annuity, but before publication, the IPO will accept the application since the status of the application is clearly that it will be published and a patent can be granted. However, the IPO will not commence production of the report until after the utility model is published.