Recently, the first unqualified patent agency violation case investigated by Shanghai was publicized in the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (Shanghai).

Through investigation, in December 2019, the illegal party in the case, a Shanghai Intellectual Property Agency, accepted the entrustment without obtaining a patent agency practice license and applied for seven utility model patents to China National Intellectual Property Administration in the name of the client, and collected a Service Fee of 17,500 yuan (including tax), which is an act of violating the relevant provisions of the Patent Agency Regulations and conducting patent agency business without authorization. The Law Enforcement Department imposed administrative penalties on the parties in accordance with the law, ruled them to stop the illegal activities, confiscated 16,509.43 yuan of illegal gains, and imposed a fine of 24764.15 yuan 1.5 times the illegal gains.

Unqualified patent agency behavior caused serious damage to the Patent Agency Market order, patent quality and the interests of the principal. As Shanghai's first case of unqualified patent agency violations, the case was investigated and handled by the Municipal Market Supervision Bureau's Enforcement Corps under the guidance of the Municipal Intellectual Property Office. It was a "serious warning" for Shanghai's "Illegal Patent Agency" phenomenon.

Since the implementation of the newly revised "Patent Agency Regulations" in March 2019, the Municipal Intellectual Property Management Department has actively carried out patent agency practice self-examinations and commitments under the unified deployment of the "Blue Sky" special rectification action of CNIPA, and patent agency "Double-random" inspections focused on cracking down on unqualified patent agents, irregular patent applications, patent agents’ “certification”, and soliciting business by improper means. Through complaints and reports, and transfers from superiors, initially grasped clues of more than forty cases of patent agency violations.

In the next step, the Municipal Intellectual Property Office will work with the Market Supervision Department to further intensively carry out case investigations. Once the relevant case clues are verified, they will be announced in time to respond to social concerns.

Source: China IP Today