1. Documentation Collection and Resources Management

In 2006, the Office collected 46 types of patent gazettes, 56 types of full-text patent specifications in image and 3 types of full-text patent specifications in paper form from 30 countries and international organizations. The Offi ce also introduced 14 non-patent literature databases, which makes available over 40 searchable databases for non-patent literature.

In 2006, a more scientific and standardized management of the documentation resource was achieved in the Office. Based upon the previous effort in the documentation collection, the Office developed new relationships with 9 patent institutions in the documentation exchange in the year. The Office enhanced its efforts to make further use of automated tools for collection, management and exploitation of documentation. The construction of the Patent Information Resource Storage System was initiated and further standardized so as to provide the data support of good quality for various application systems. The first stage construction of the said system can be foreseen to be completed by the first half of 2007. The Full-Text Inquiry System, based on intranet, passed the final acceptance test. Through the System, examiners can access the full-text patent specifications in image whenever necessary for their examination. The Office also started the project for preliminary and deep processing of Chinese patent documentation, especially of three types invention patent, utility model and industrial design, in order to have an excellent and standardized integration of the data of Chinese patent documentation. The Office started translating the Chinese patent documentation (1985-2005) into English, which included the bibliographic data and abstracts of invention patents, utility models and designs with priority right. It will be completed by the first half of 2008.

2. Further Effort in the Construction of Respective Information Centers with Local Governments

According to the State Council's unified deployment, the Office, in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology and other departments, formulated policies and adopted measures to promote the construction of a service platform for intellectual property information nationwide. The Office also strengthened communication and coordination with local IP offices so as to accelerate the pace of building up specialized information centers and patent databases. In 2006, a total of 17 Patent Information Centers were set up, while 14 full patent documentation databases and 3 specialized databases were set up for local IP offices in Guangdong, Tianjin, Hebei and Shanxi, etc.

3. Research on IPC Classification

In 2006, the Chinese version of the 8th edition of the IPC was published, along with the prompt update of the amendments to the IPC. The corresponding content related to classification in the Guidelines for Examination" and the China Patent Management System (CIII) were also revised accordingly. Moreover, the training was organized for examiners on the application of the 8th edition of the IPC. The proposal put forward by the Office on subclassification of plant pesticide (A01N65/00) in the 8th edition of IPC was approved at the 15th Session of the IPC Revision Working Group of WIPO.