According to the provision of Article 35 of the Chinese Patent Law, the time when the applicant can made a request for examination as to substance on its own initiative is three years from the filing date (where priority is claimed, from the date of priority). Obviously, the applicant can make a request for examination as to substance at the same time when the application for patent for invention is filed.
According to the provision of Article 34 of the Chinese Patent Law, any applicants for applications for patent for invention may request for earlier publication therefor.
Where an invention-creation is rather mature therefor it is likely to obtain a patent right, and, before filing the application for patent for invention, the applicant had already done huge amount of work on the search and investigation on the prior art in the field to which said invention belongs in respect of the novelty and inventiveness of said invention. In addition, the preparation work on the exploitation of said invention is also quite ready once being granted the patent right, in this case, the applicant, in order to assign his invention-creation at an early date, or in order to have the products or methods of his invention-creation be exploited at an early date, or in order to enter into the proceedings of substantive examination or to pass the substantive examination and to possibly obtain the patent right at an early date, can file a request for earlier publication at the same time when filing the application for patent for invention. It goes without saying that the applicant shall also make a request for substantive examination, otherwise, the purpose of earlier examination and possible early grant of patent right can not be achieved.
