The revised Guidelines for Patent Examination took effect on April 1, 2017. They apply to applications filed on or after that date and to applications still under examination. The revisions address business methods, computer programs, supplementary experimental data and invalidation proceedings.
The revised Guidelines changed the examination principles for claims relating to business methods.
Under the previous Guidelines, a business-method claim was treated during substantive examination as a rule or method for mental activities, regardless of whether it contained technical features. It would therefore be rejected as excluded subject matter under Article 25 of the Chinese Patent Law.
The rapid development of internet technologies has generated innovative business methods in finance, insurance, securities, leasing, auctions, investment, marketing, advertising and operations management. These methods can improve process efficiency and resource allocation and reduce social costs. Their technical solutions require substantial creative work by inventors and applicants and deserve appropriate encouragement and protection. Excluding such solutions merely because they contain business rules or methods no longer meets these developments.
To meet the demand for protection, the revised Guidelines expressly provide that a business-method claim containing both business rules or methods and technical features must not be excluded from the possibility of patent protection under Article 25. In other words, the presence of technical features prevents a business-method claim from being treated solely as a rule or method for mental activities under that provision.
Example
A method for selling insurance online through insurance-service terminal equipment and a central server connected to a network, comprising:
Setting the insurance type and specific insurance content using the terminal’s input keyboard;
Reading, processing and storing the applicant’s identification information using an identity-card reader;
Transmitting the insurance type, specific insurance content and applicant’s identification information from the terminal to the central server through the network; and printing the insurance documents.
This claim includes technical means for reading, processing, storing and transmitting identification information. Under the revised Guidelines, it is not excluded from patent protection on the above ground. The examiner proceeds to substantive requirements such as novelty, inventiveness and support by the description.
When drafting an application, the applicant may therefore first identify the technical features in the overall solution, define them clearly in the claims and explain their technical effects in detail in the description.
