▍ Patent practice - filing a PCT international application with China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) as the Receiving Office (RO)

Written by Allen G. Zhou | Aug 24 2022

I recently received an inquiry from a US colleague about filing a PCT international application with CNIPA as the RO without a priority basis. I have rarely discussed this issue with my foreign associates in the past because although CNIPA is one of the PCT receiving offices, the applicant must meet the below conditions. And the fact is most of the foreign inbound cases we handle here are with foreign applicants.

(1) A citizen of China or a Chinese legal entity.

(2) A foreigner with permanent residence in China or a foreign legal entity registered with the Chinese industry and commerce department. 

If there are multiple applicants, it is sufficient that one of the applicants fits the above.

It just so happens that the case the US colleague consulted on involved an applicant is a university in HK. So there is no problem to proceed.

 I also explained to him the benefits of using CNIPA as the receiving office, which I like to further share here.

If the RO of the PCT international application is CNIPA when the client decides to enter the CN national phrase after that, kindly note the client can enjoy the latter-described fee-waiver-policy:

Cutting 1) the whole official filing fee, 2) the whole official surcharge, and 3) 50% of the official substantive examination fee.

In case you receive the same inquiry from your clients in the future, you can refer to this post. Any questions, feel free to contact me.