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The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) announced the Patent Examination Guidelines for Filing Divisional Applications and Conversion of Applications on 29 January 1999. Through the Amendment of these guidelines, the IPO clarified confusions over the following issues:
The subject matters of divisional applications should not be limited to inventions disclosed in the claims; inventions disclosed in the specification or drawings should also be included.
Inventions disclosed in dependent claims may legally be the subject matters of divisional applications if they conform to the provisions of Article 32 of the Patent Law.
Since patent cases under opposition proceedings have already been approved and published in the Patent Gazettes and beyond the stage for filing divisional applications (i.e. divisional applications must be filed prior to issuance of the reexamination decisions), divisional applications for the above-mentioned cases are not allowed. However, for a granted patent case, an application may be filed to divide the patent into separate patents pursuant to Article 68 of the Patent Law.
When priority claim made for the parent cases applies to the divisional application cases, it remains necessary to declare the priority claim. Photocopies of the priority document must be submitted.
Once a patent applicant has applied for a conversion for a patent application already filed, he may never subsequently apply for another conversion seeking to convert the case back into the original category of patent application.
