1. Requests for Reexamination and Cases Closed

Since 1985, 3803 requests for reexamination had been received. In 2001 alone, 616 were received showing an increase of 61 (or 11%) over the previous year. Of all the requests, 498 were related to patent for inventions, accounting for 80.8% of the total in 2001. In 2000, 625 re-examination cases were closed, of which 22.7% were settled through revocation of the original decisions on rejection made by the examination department concerned as well as of decisions on requests for revocation.

2. Requests for Invalidation and Cases Closed

Since 1985, the Patent Re-examination Board has received 6,842 requests for invalidation, of which 1,316 were received in 2001, showing an increase of 122 (10.2%) over the previous year. Of the total request for invalidation in 2001, 75 related to patents for inventions, accounting for 5.7% of the total; 605 to the utility models, accounting for 46%; and 636 to industrial designs, representing 48.3%. In 2001, 1,480 cases were closed, of which 41.6% were declared invalid, 9.7% partially invalid, and 48.7% were maintained.

3. Summary on Requests for Re-examination and for Invalidation and Cases Closed

In 2001, 1,932 requests for reexamination and invalidation declaration were received and 2,105 were closed. In 2000, SIPO received 1749 requests for re-examination and invalidation. With 10.5% increase of the requests in 2001 than those in 2000, SIPO continued keeping up closing more cases than those received within a year and further shortened the reexamination and closing period.

4. Patent Administrative Litigation

Since 1985, 224 cases had been appealed to the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court and the Beijing High People's Court due to dissatisfaction with the decisions on requests for reexamination or invalidation made by the Patent Reexamination Board. 76 were against the decisions of reexamination and 148 were gainst the decisions on requests for invalidation, among which a total of 177 cases were closed. Since the implementation of the Revised Patent Law on July 1st, 2001, there have been 19 cases against the decisions on requests for invalidation of utility models and 3 against the decisions on requests for invalidation of industrial designs.