Amendment to Claims of Granted Patent under Chinese Patent Law

67-71A granted patent may have defects in its claims which affect its validity; and thus it is important for the patentee to find a process to amend claims in order to protect his invention. But a Chinese patentee may only do so in the centralized patent invalidation proceedings on strict—or precisely rigid—conditions. The Supreme People’s Court of PR China, however, recently showed willingness to relax them. In Patent Reexamination Board (PRB) v Jiangsu Xiansheng Pharm Co Ltd et al., the Court held that a patentee may amend a claim in a manner other than that provided in the Guidelines for Patent Examination, rejecting PRB’s rigid application of law. While patentees are applauding this development, there is risk of opening backdoor for poor patents, for the amended claims may be ‘maintained’ as valid without full examination. In the wake of the Xiansheng case, PRB should be required to do comprehensive examination in light of the whole patent regime to determine whether claims amended in invalidation proceedings meet all the statutory requirements for granting a patent