May 29, 2014

The State Intellectual Property Office ("SIPO") released on March 12 its Decision on Revising the Patent Examination Guidelines (No. 68) (the "Decision"), with effect as of May 1, 2014.

The Decision deletes the last sentence of the third paragraph of Section 7.2 of Chapter III of Part I: "the pattern of a product shall be fixed and visible, and shall not be vague or visible under certain conditions."

In addition, one sentence is added after Item (4) in the second paragraph of Section 6.1 of Chapter V of Part IV: "as for the design consisting of graphical user interface, if the design of other parts of the patent in question is common, its graphical user interface has an obvious influence on the overall visual effects."

(Source: www.sipo.gov.cn)