Chinese Patent Number System

According to a note on the EPO's Asian Patent Helpdesk, the Chinese patent office has adopted a new numbering scheme for published applications and issued patents. Prior to April 2010, applications and patents were published with different numbers. The new system uses the same number for both stages with the appropriate document kind code, e.g. A, A8 and A9 for published applications and B, B8 and B9 for granted patents.

Patented in China: New Report from Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters has published a new report called "Patented in China: the Present and Future State of Innovation in China." Patent filings from China have been growing faster than any other region in the last few years and if the trend continues it will become the "dominant country in the patent landscape" by 2012. The press release and PDF report are available at http://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/press/2008/8494659/.

The EPO's East Asian Patent Information portal has a number of FAQs and guides to Chinese, Korean and Japanese patents.