China’s the Intellectual Property (IP) Court of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) on February 28 published 55 guiding principles it had identified in 48 representative cases of the 3,460 ones in which it issued rulings in 2021. The following are 10 representative administrative patent cases and their guiding principles illustrated.

Administrative patent case 01

Case docket no.: （2019）最高法知行终61号

Case docket no. transliteration: 61, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2019) Supreme People’s Court (（2019）最高法)

Guiding principle: Terms shall be well defined before being used in claims.

Administrative patent case 02

Case docket no.: （2021）最高法知行终349号

Case docket no. transliteration: 349, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2021) Supreme People’s Court (（2021）最高法)

Guiding principle: The case sets an example on the determination of the inventive step for a technology for limiting the number of mechnical components.

Administrative patent case 03

Case docket no.: （2021）最高法知行终83号

Case docket no. transliteration: 83, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2021) Supreme People’s Court (（2021）最高法)

Guiding principle: When details of a technical solution disclosed at different spots of a document can be combined as a logical whole by an expert, the whole shall be compared with the state of the art for novelty purposes. This practice doesn’t go against the principle of seperate comparison.

Administrative patent case 04

Case docket no.: （2021）最高法知行终83号

Case docket no. Transliteration: 83, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2021) Supreme People’s Court (（2021）最高法)

Guiding principle: When the details of a technical solution are worded differently at discrete spots of a document and the details at some spots are in conflict with the context, the technical solution is ruled to be not disclosed in this document.

Administrative patent case 05

Case docket no.: （2021）最高法知行终158号

Case docket no. transliteration: 158, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2021) Supreme People’s Court (（2021）最高法)

Guiding principle: The case sets an example on the choice of prior art for determining the inventive step of an invention patent of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

Administrative patent case 06

Case docket no.: （2020）最高法知行终155号

Case docket no. transliteration: 155, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2020) Supreme People’s Court (（2020）最高法)

Guiding principle: The term "special technical features" is defined as meaning those technical features that define a contribution which each of the inventions considered as a whole, makes over the prior art.

Administrative patent case 07

Case docket no.: （2020）最高法知行终558号

Case docket no. transliteration: 558, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2020) Supreme People’s Court (（2020）最高法)

Guiding principle: The case sets an example on the determination of the inventive step in novel phamaceutical inventions with existing chemical compounds.

Administrative patent case 08

Case docket no.: （2020）最高法知行终268号

Case docket no. Transliteration: 268, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2020) Supreme People’s Court (（2020）最高法)

Guiding principle: Restrictions on use don’t apply to determining the inventive step in claims of products as combinations of chemical compounds.

Administrative patent case 09

Case docket no.: （2021）最高法知行终621号

Case docket no. transliteration: 621, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2021) Supreme People’s Court (（2021）最高法)

Guiding principle: The non-shape or structure-type technical characteristics of utility models patents are not considered in principle when determining the plea of existing technology.

Administrative patent case 10

Case docket no.: （2021）最高法知行终158号

Case docket no. transliteration: 158, second instance (终), administrative case (行), intellectual property (知), (2021) Supreme People’s Court (（2021）最高法)

Guiding principle: The case sets an example on the determination of the effect of the closest prior art when determining the inventive step of a claimed invention of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

The full text is available here.