Zhao Xiaohui - Senior Legal Counsel

 

In the patent and technology fields, the value of patent documents is self-evident. Acquaintance with the Chinese patent document numbering system not only helps us quickly identify patent documents, but also greatly improves the efficiency and accuracy of our access to them.

 

Patent documents are patent application documents and announced documents of granted patents published by the intellectual property offices of various countries in the statutory procedures. A patent document number is a unique identification number assigned to each document by the intellectual property office in such procedures in the process of patent application publication and patent grant announcement.

 

In the course of searching and using Chinese patent documents, the Chinese patent document numbering system encountered includes the following patent document numbers, namely:

 

Application number - an identification number given to an invention, utility model or design patent application when the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) accepts the patent application;

 

Patent number - an identification number given to an invention, utility model or design patent when it is patented;

 

Publication number - an identification number given to a set of published invention patent application documents when the invention patent application is published;

 

Announcement or issue number – an identification number given to a set of announced patent documents when the grant of a patent to an invention, utility model or design is announced;

 

A patent document number is equivalent to the "identity card" of the patent document. Since the implementation of the patent system in China, the patent document numbering system has gone through four stages of development: the first stage ran from 1985 to 1988; the second 1989 to 1992; the third 1993 to June 30, 2004; and the current forth stage started  from July 1, 2004. This article will be focusing on the current version of the document numbering system put in place on that date, and on the ways or routes to obtain patent documents.

 

 

 

 

Application number: There are three types of patent applications: invention patent, utility model, and design patent applications. A patent application of any class, regardless of whether it complies with the patentability requirements, is given an application number as long as it is successfully accepted. The composition of the application number goes as follows:

 

1)An application number for any of the three types of patents consists of a chronically arranged 12-digits and a dot "." and one check digit, for example, 202310102344.5, the first four digits of which indicate the year of application, with the year written in the year of the Common Era. For example, 2023 means that the year of acceptance of the patent application is 2023 AD;

 

2) The fifth digit indicates the type of patent application for which protection is sought, as follows:

 

1- indicates an invention patent application; 

2- indicates a utility model patent application; 

3- indicates a design patent application;

6- indicates the registration of an international design patent under the Hague System that has entered the national phase in China;

8- Indicates a Chinese national phase  invention patent application based on a PCT patent application;

9- Indicates a  Chinese national phase utility model patent application based on a PCT patent application.

 

3) The sixth to twelfth digits (a total of 7 digits) indicate the sequential number of the application in the current year, and then a dot "." is used to separate the patent application number from the check digit, the last digit.

 

Patent number: The patent application number is preceded by the letter string "ZL" to form the patent number, and ZL is the combination of the initials of the Chinese pinyin for "patent", indicating that the patent application has been patented. Take the patent application number 202310102344.5 for example, the patent number of this patent is written as ZL202310102344.5.

 

 

 

Publication refers to the publication of an invention patent application at the expiration of the 18-month period from the filing date (or priority date) or at the request of the applicant for earlier publication after the application for a patent has passed the preliminary examination (formality examination) .

 

Announcement refers to a grant or patenting announcement when an invention patent application is granted the patent without finding any ground or reason for rejection after the substantive examination; a grant announcement of the grant of the utility model or design patent when the utility model or design patent application is granted the patent without finding any ground or reason for rejection after the preliminary examination; and an announcement of partial invalidation of a patent for invention, utility model or design.

 

A document number for any of all the patent descriptions or specifications published since July 1, 2004 consist of a string of letters CN, the Chinese country code, and 9 digits, as well as 1 letter or 1 letter plus 1 number (the announcement number of an invention or a PCT application shall be implemented from Issue 29 of Volume 23, and a grant or patenting announcement number for any of the three classes of patents shall be implemented from Issue 35 of Volume 23). Among them, the first digit after the letter string CN indicates the type of patent application for which protection is sought: 1 - invention, 2 - utility model, and 3 - design. It should be pointed out here that the document numbers of "Chinese national phase invention patent application and Chinese national phase utility model patent application based on a PCT patent application" and "international design applications" are no longer arranged separately, but are grouped together with inventions, utility models and designs respectively. The second to ninth digits are the serial number, and the three types of patents are arranged in order according to their respective serial number sequences, accumulated year by year, and the invention patent grant announcement number follows the patent document number assigned to the invention patent application when it is first published, and the last letter or 1 letter plus 1 number is the patent document class identification code. 

 

 

 

A Invention patent application

A8 Invention patent application (title page corrections)

A9 Invention patent application (full text corrections)

B. Invention patent

B8 Invention patent (title page corrections)

B9 Invention Patent (full text corrections)

C1-C6 Invention patent (partially declared invalid)

 

 

 

 

 

U Utility model patent

U8 Utility Model Patent (title page corrections)

U9 Utility Model Patent (full text corrections)

Y1-Y6 Utility model patent (partially declared invalid)

 

 

 

S Design Patent

S1-S6 Design patent (partially declared invalid)

S8 Design Patent (title page corrections)

S9 Design Patent (full text corrections)

 

 

 

 

Bibliographic items data: the various bibliographic data related to a patent application and patent grant published on the title page of a separate book or in the patent gazette include, among other things, document identification data, domestic application filing data, priority data, publication or announcement data, classification data. It consists of the name and content of the bibliographic items.

 

INID Code: Identification code for bibliographic items in patent documents. It is the acronym of the Internationally Agreed Numbers for the Identification of (bibliographic) Data.

 

(10) Patent document identification sign

(12) Title of patent document

(15) Correction data of patent document

(19) Name of the national authority that publishes or announces the patent documents

(21) Application number

(22) Filing date

(30) Priority data

(43) Application publication date 

(45) Grant announcement date

(48) Corrected document publication date

(51) International patent classification

(54) Title of invention or utility model

(56) Reference

(57) Abstract

(62) Data of original application of divisional application

(66) National priority data

(71) Applicant

(72) Inventor

(73) Patentee

(74) Patent agency and patent attorney

(83) Biological depository information

(85) Date of entry of a PCT international application into the national phase

(86) Application data of PCT international application

(87) Publication data of PCT international application

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(10) Patent document identification sign

(12) Title of patent document

(15) Correction data of patent document

(19) Name of the national authority that publishes the patent document

(21) Application number

(22) Filing date

(30) Priority data

(45) Grant announcement date 

(48)  Corrected document publication date

(51) International Design Classification (the Locarno Classification)

(54) Name of the product incorporating the design

(56) Reference

(62) Data of original application for divisional application

(72) Designer

(73) Patentee

(74) Patent agency and patent attorney

(80) International design registration number or international design registration number of international design

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the first part above, we have explained in detail the Chinese patent document numbers, and this part will be focusing on the ways or routes to obtain the Chinese patent documents.

 

1. CNIPA website (free online resources) https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/

 

 

Enter the homepage of the website, then enter the patent operational system, and choose to enter the  China patent publication and announcement interface of http://epub.cnipa.gov.cn/. You need to register and log on first, and you can enter the application number, publication number, announcement number and other relevant information to search the relevant patent and download it. The database includes  all the Chinese patent publication and announcement data from September 10, 1985 to the present day, substantive examination and validity, patent termination, patent transfer, bibliographic changes, patent licensing and other transaction data information.

 

 

 

 

 

If you need to obtain more relevant application information, enter the CNIPA patent examination information search interface

https://tysf.cponline.cnipa.gov.cn/am/#/user/login 

 

 

 

 

Enter the application number, invention title, applicant and other information of the relevant application to search for the relevant published patent documents. Through this interface, you can view a series of related information, such as the case status (pending the substantive examination, rejection, patent right validity, etc.), application information (agency of the applicant and inventor, etc.), examination information (office actions from the patent office, applicant submitted responses), fee information (fees due and fees paid) and a series of related information (some information is not accessible to the public).

https://tysf.cponline.cnipa.gov.cn/am/#/user/login

 

2. Official website of the European IP office (free online resources)

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/advancedSearch?locale=en_EP  

You can search and download the application number, publication number, or announcement number of the Chinese patent applications.

 

3. Other Patent Database Websites (free online resources)

CNKI Patent Sub-database website: https://kns.cnki.net/kns/brief/result.aspx?dbprefix=SCOD  

 

Websites, such as Wanfang patent sub-database website: http://new.wanfangdata.com.cn/index.html  

China Intellectual Property Network (www.cnipr.com ), China Patent Information Center (www.cnpat.com.cn ), China Patent Information Network Search System (www.patent.com.cn ), all provide free search and access to the Chinese patent resources.

 

 

 

References:

[1] ZC 0007-2012 Chinese Patent Document Number Standard;

[2] ZC 0008-2012 Chinese Patent Document Class Identification Code;

[3] ZC 0009-2012 Chinese Patent Document Bibliographical Items;

https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2012/11/14/art_527_146111.html；

[4] The Documentation Information Research Course Group of the Shanghai Science and Technology University, Four Stages of Chinese Patent Documents Numbering System, http://wjk.usst.edu.cn/2020/0419/c10156a218346/page.htm, 

[5] Tang Caixiang,  Department of the CNIPA Patent Documentation Department, Chinese Patent Document Numbering System,  https://www.taodocs.com/p-319860911.html?v=undefined;

[6] The China National Intellectual Property Administration,Guidelines for Patent Examination, the Intellectual Property Press, Beijing, 2009;

[7] Tian Lipu. Basic Course on Invention Patent Examination [Search Volume][M], the Intellectual Property Press, Beijing, 2008;

[8] The CNIPA Official website.

 

 

 

 

Author’s Profile：

 

Ms. Zhao Xiaohui graduated from Tianjin Normal University with a bachelor's degree in English translation in 2008, and joined Panawell LLP in 2012 as a senior legal counsel. Having accumulated rich practical experience in patent processing and prosecution management and patent search for many years, she is very much familiar with the key and difficult points of all the aspects of the patent agency process and Chinese and foreign patent search, and she has undertaken a great deal of complex and difficult patent processing, prosecution and search tasks. On top of all this, she has gained a relatively in-depth understanding and research capability of the patent laws of China and other major countries and regions, such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.