The revised Chinese "Guidelines for Patent Examination" came into effect on November 1, 2019. This revision includes the amendments to the relevant provisions of the divisional application. This article will introduce the divisional application system for patent in China.
 

                                                                                    (Source: Internet)
 
1. What is a divisional application?
 
Where a patent application contains two or more inventions, the applicant may submit a divisional application on his initiative or under the Office Action of the examiner.
 
A divisional application shall be submitted based on the parent application (first filed application). The category of a divisional application shall be the same as that of the initial application.
 
2. Requirements of a divisional application?
 
2.1 Applicant and inventor of divisional application
The divisional application can only be submitted by the applicant of the parent application. When the applicant needs to be changed, the procedures for changing the bibliographic data must be processed to avoid forging the divisional application and effectively protect the interests of the applicant. And the applicant who filed another divisional application for the divisional application shall be the applicant of the divisional application.
 
The inventor of a divisional application shall be the inventor or part of the inventors of the initial application. And the inventor of another divisional application for the divisional application shall be the inventor or part of the inventors of the divisional application.
 
2.2 Submission time of divisional application
2.2.1 The applicant shall file a divisional application no later than the expiration of two months (i. e., the time limit for going through the formalities of registration) from the date of receiving the Notification to Grant Patent Right to the initial application issued by the Patent Office.
2.2.2 The applicant may file a divisional application within three months from the date that the applicant receives the Rejection Decision regardless of whether the applicant requests for reexamination or not.
2.2.3 The applicant, after requesting for reexamination or during the initiation of the administrative litigation against the reexamination decision, may also file a divisional application.
2.2.4 Where an applicant files another divisional application based on an already filed divisional application, the submission date of another divisional application shall be based on the parent application ( i.e., meets the requirements of above 2.2.1, 2.2.2 or 2.2.3).
2.2.5 According to this amendment, if the examiner issues a Notification to Make Divisional Application or an office action indicating the unity defect in the divisional application, and the applicant can submit another divisional application under the examiner’s examination opinion. The time limit of submitting another divisional application should be based on the divisional application with unity defects.
 
2.3 Submitted documents of a divisional application
Besides the application documents, a copy of the application documents of the parent application and a copy of other documents relevant to the divisional application in the parent application (such as copy of the priority document) shall also be submitted.
 
Where the international publication of the initial application is in a language other than Chinese, a copy of such international publication shall be submitted together with a Chinese copy of the initial application.
 
Besides, this amendment simplifies the procedure for submitting another divisional application. It eliminates the requirement to submit a copy of the office action indicating the unity defect or the Notification to Make Divisional Application issued by the examiner.
 
2.4 Contents of the divisional application
The divisional application shall not go beyond the scope of disclosure contained in the initial application.
 
For invention or utility model patent application, the claims of the parent application after division and the divisional application shall claim protection of different inventions respectively. The description shall contain the invention protected by the claims of the divisional application.
 
For design patent application, (1) Where the initial application contains two or more designs, the design of the divisional application shall be one or more of the designs taken out from the initial application; (2) Where the design of the initial application is a design of the whole product, the applicant is not allowed to take only part of the product out of the design as the subject matter of the divisional application.
 
2.5 Time Limit and Fees of Divisional Application
The various prescribed time limits applicable for a divisional application shall be calculated from the initial date of filing. The applicant shall pay all the same fees for a divisional application as he shall pay for a new application.
 
Where the various time limits (including the time limits for paying the various fees) have expired, or are less than two months from the submission date of the divisional application to the date of expiration, when the divisional application is submitted, the applicant may go through the various formalities or pay the fees within two months from the submission date of the divisional application, or within fifteen days from the date of receipt the Notification of Acceptance.
 
3. Benefits of a divisional application
 
3.1 When there is a defect of lacking unity in the parent application, the applicant can protect the deleted technical solution in the form of divisional application, to prevent the applicant from losing part of the claims because the patent application does not meet the unity principle.
 
3.2 Where a patent application has been rejected or has entered the reexamination process and the prospects for the reexamination are not very optimistic, if such a disadvantageous situation is caused by errors in the original application document, etc., and the content described in the original specification indeed includes a technical solution with protection value, the applicant can file a divisional application at this time to protect the corresponding technical solution. In this way, even if the result of the reexamination of the parent application is to maintain the rejection, the applicant still has the opportunity to stop the loss as much as possible through the divisional application.
 
3.3 When there is a dispute between the applicant and the examiner about whether some claims met the granting conditions, the applicant can delete the disputed claims first, so that other claims can be quickly granted. The granting possibility of the patent application increases accordingly. The applicant can rewrite the claims that have been abandoned into the divisional application.
 
3.4 The parent application and the divisional application are usually examined by different examiner so that the examination result may be different. The granting possibility of the patent application increases accordingly.
 
3.5 As one of the means of patent layout strategy, a divisional application can confuse competitors. The applicant can first put many technical solutions into a specification with multiple sets of claims that do not have unity. Then, try to adopt various strategies to keep the parent application "pending". Afterwards, the applicant can use the divisional application to realize his true protection strategy at a favorable time.
 
3.6 The number of patents is one of the evaluation elements of an enterprise's technological innovation ability. The divisional application increases the number of patents, thereby helping the enterprise obtain the government's funding or awards.
 
3.7 The increase in the number of patents also allows applicants to obtain more economic benefits by patent licenses.
 
The divisional application system is an important part of the patent examination and approval system. Reasonable use of a divisional application can help applicants better protect their rights.
 
Reference：
1. http://www.sipo.gov.cn/zcfg/zcjd/1143361.htm