By September 4, 2017, cumulative requests for Chinese design patent evaluation reports had reached 30,000. The first 10,000 took five years, the second 10,000 took one year and two months, and the third 10,000 took only ten months.
The requests covered 197 of the 214 subclasses in the International Classification for Industrial Designs, or 92.1%. Industries with more than 1,000 requests included bags, lighting, cups, bowls and dishes, toys, furniture, beauty and cosmetics, and cameras. This distribution was consistent with design filing volumes and broadly aligned with the sectors served by SIPO’s rapid rights-protection centers.
The evaluation-report system supplements preliminary examination of design patents. Its growing role in online enforcement, customs recordal and infringement litigation has attracted increasing public recognition.