- Grant fee: The applicant should pay the announcement fee and the first annual fee (that is, the annual fee for the first to fifth years) within 3 months after receiving the notification of the granted decision.
- Annuity: Pay the annual fee for the next 5 years every 5 years. If the annual fee is overdue, you can pay it within a grace period of 3 months, and pay 30% of the annual fee for the current year as a late fee.
yes
The PPO conducts formal and substantive examinations of invention patent applications. There is no need to file a request for substantive examination, and the substantive examination starts automatically.
The PPO only conducts formality examination of the design, and does not examine novelty and uniqueness.
no
yes
25 years
no
The PPO only conducts formality examination of utility model patent applications, only examines novelty and industrial applicability, and does not examine inventive step.
2-4 years
yes. An invention applicant may propose to change the type of invention from an invention to a utility model during the process of examining the application or within two months from the date of the final decision on the refusal to grant a patent. The utility model application shall be deemed to have been filed from the date of the invention application. A utility model application converted from an invention must fully meet the requirements for utility model documents.