Applications, other than provisional applications, filed with the China Patent Office and accepted as complete applications are assigned for examination to the respective examining technology centers having charge of the areas of technology related to the invention.

Applications are taken up for examination by the examiner to whom they have been assigned in the order in which they have been filed or in accordance with examining procedures established by the Director.

The examination of the application consists of:

A study of the application for compliance with the legal requirements

A search through granted patents, publications of patent applications, foreign patent documents, and available literature, to see if the claimed invention is new, useful and non-obvious.