Many applicants want to make amendments in accordance with the claims of the corresponding foreign patent(s) when responding to the office action(s) of Chinese patent, especially when these corresponding patent(s) have been or are to be granted. This may indeed increase the probability of Chinese patents being allowed, and it will also facilitate the management of patents in different countries.

The patent application documents in these different countries are usually the same, but each country has different regulations for amendments, especially the amendments made in response to office action. Therefore, if the Chinese patent claims are amended directly in accordance with the claims of the corresponding foreign patent(s) (including addition, change or deletion of features, etc.), even if these amendments do not exceed the scope of the scope of original patent application document, they may still be disallowed.

The following will introduce the allowed amendments and the disallowable amendments (the disallowable additions, changes and deletions) in response to the office actions.

ⅠAllowed amendments

1. One or more additional technical features are introduced into the independent claim to further define the claim so as to eliminate the defects of the initial claim, such as lacking novelty or inventive step, lacking essential technical feature for solving the technical problem, lacking support in the description, or not defining the extent of the patent protection sought for in a clear manner, etc.

2. One or more technical features of the independent claim are changed to eliminate the defects of the initial claim, such as lacking support in the description, not defining the extent of the patent protection sought for in a clear manner, or lacking novelty or inventive step.

3. The category, title of the subject matter and the corresponding technical features of the independent claim are changed to eliminate the defects of the initial claim, such as having wrong category or lacking novelty or inventive step.

4. One or more claims are deleted to eliminate such defects as lacking unity between the initial first independent claim and the parallel independent claims, the claims being not concise as two claims have identical extent of protection, or the claims lacking support in the description.

5. The independent claim is correctly delimited from the closest prior art.

6. The reference portion of the dependent claim is amended to correct the mistake of reference so as to accurately mirror the specific mode for carrying out the invention or embodiment described in the initial description.

7. The characterizing portion of the dependent claim is amended to clearly define the extent of protection claimed by said dependent claim so as to accurately mirror the specific mode for carrying out the invention or embodiment described in the initial description.

ⅡDisallowable amendments

Specifically, if, after the addition, change and/or deletion of part of the contents of the application, the information as seen by a person skilled in the art is different from those described in the initial application and such information cannot be directly or unambiguously derived from those described in the initial application, such amendment shall not be allowable.

1. Disallowable additions

The following additions are not allowable.

(1) The technical features which cannot be directly and definitely confirmed from the initial description (and the drawings) and/or claims are introduced into the claims and/or description.

(2) The information which cannot be directly and unambiguously determined from the initial description (and the drawings) and/or claims is added to make the disclosed invention clear or the claims complete.

(3) The contents added are the technical features relating to the parameter of size obtained by measuring the drawings.

(4) The additional component which has not been mentioned in the initial application documents is introduced, which leads to special effects which do not exist in the initial application.

(5) The useful effects which cannot be directly derived from the initial application by a person skilled in the art are added.

(6) The experimental data is added to illustrate the advantageous effects of the invention, and/or the specific mode for carrying out the invention or embodiment is added to prove that the invention can be carried out in the extent of protection claimed in the claims.

(7) The supplement of the drawings that are not mentioned in the initial application is generally not allowable. However, the supplement of drawing of the background art, or the replacement of the drawing of the well-known art contained in the initial drawings by the one of the closest prior art shall be allowable.

2. Disallowable changes

The following changes are not allowable.

(1) The technical features of the claims are changed. Such amendment goes beyond the scope of disclosure contained in the initial claims and description.

(2) New contents are introduced by changing indefinite contents into definite and specific contents.

(3) Several separate features of the initial application documents are combined as a new feature while the interrelations of these separate features are not mentioned definitely in the initial application documents.

(4) Certain feature described in the description is changed to make the changed technical contents different from those described in the initial application documents. Such amendment goes beyond the scope of disclosure contained in the initial description and claims.

3. Disallowable deletions

The following deletions are not allowable.

(1) The technical features which are definitely determined as the essential technical features of the invention in the initial application are deleted from the independent claim, i.e., the technical features which are described as the essential technical features throughout the initial application are deleted; or a technical term which is related to the technical solution described in the description is deleted from the claims; or the technical feature which is affirmed clearly in the description as relating to the specific application scope is deleted from the claims.

(2) Some contents are deleted from the description, which makes the amended description go beyond the scope of disclosure contained in the initial description and claims.

(3) If no other numerical value within the initial numerical range of a certain technical feature is described in the initial description and claims, while novelty and inventive step are prejudiced by the contents disclosed in reference documents, or the invention cannot be carried out when said feature adopts certain parts of the initial numerical range, in view of these two situations, the applicant has to use a specific "disclaimer" to exclude said parts from the initial numerical range so that the numerical range of the claimed technical solution does not include said parts obviously as a whole, such amendment shall not be allowed because the amendment has gone beyond the scope of disclosure contained in the initial description and claims, with the exception that the applicant can prove, in accordance with the contents described in the initial application, that the invention cannot be carried out when said feature adopts the "disclaimed" numerical value, or the invention possesses novelty and involves an inventive step when said feature adopts the numerical value after the "disclaimer".