On January 3, 2018, with respect to the Request for invalidation of the utility patent “A Ventilator for General- Purpose Mask” of a company in Beijing filed by a petitioner, the Patent Reexamination Board of SIPO issued an Examination Decision of Request for Invalidation declaring invalidity of the patent right.

Uni –intel was authorized by the petitioner to handle the invalidation case. Uni-intel team believed that claims 1-5 do not have creativity and the word “rapid rotation” is confusing, and submitted relative proof.

Case review:

On July 5, 2017, the petitioner filed request for invalidation and submitted proof before the Patent Reexamination Board of SIPO claiming that the said patent is invalid for its claims 1-5 violates Section 3, Article 22 and claim 1 violates Section 4, Article 26 of Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China.

On November 17, 2017, patent attorneys representing both parties attended an oral hearing. Regarding claims 1-3 that the patentee submitted after modifying its previous claims 1-5, the patent attorney from Uni –intel argued that claims 1-3 violates Section 3, Article 22 of Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China based on proof No. 1 and common sense, and claim 1 violates Section 4, Article 26 of Patent Law of P.R.C. for protection scope referred in claim 1 is confusing.

On January 3, 2018, Reexamination Board of SIPO announced invalidity of the utility patent.

Legal Basis: Section 4, Article 26 and Section 3, Article 22 of Patent Law of P.R.C.

Key Points of the Decision:

Whether expressions may cause ambiguity of protection scope referred in claims shall be judged based on technical solutions and common sense in relative technical field and in the view of technicians in the said field.

With respect to judgment of creativity, Firstly, technical solutions referred in Claims shall be compared with Prior Art for identifying distinctive features between the both, and technical problems referred in the technical solutions. Secondly, whether the said technical problems can be solved by introducing the distinctive features into the Prior Art shall be judged; if the Prior Art can be used to solve the said technical problems, the patent will not have creativity.