Two Patents of CPA-Handled Cases Honoured in 25th China Patent Award

Recently, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) revealed the results of the 25th China Patent Award. The Award was co-organised by the CNIPA and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for recognising outstanding achievements in technological innovation and intellectual property (IP) application. Among the winners of these highest honours for patents in China were two patents whose applications were handled by our firm China Patent Agent (H.K.) Ltd. (CPA), one of them winning a patent gold award and the other a design excellence award.

The patent gold award case, titled "Pyridinylaminopyrimidine derivatives, preparation process and use thereof" (ZL201410365911.4) and owned by Shanghai Allist Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd., is the basic patent of the patentee's domestically developed third-generation EGFR-TKIs "Vumetinib (Aifosa)". Characterised by a relatively stable parent core structure in combination with variable groups at a plurality of variable positions, the patent provides protection not only for Vumetinib's core technical solutions but also for tens of thousands of alternative technical solutions. Further, the patent, with its detailed and sufficient disclosure in the specification, lays a groundwork of effective disclosure for subsequent applications of crystal form patents (CN201610127022.3, CN201911024029.2), specific pharmaceutical salt patents (CN201610126987.0), and method and intermediate patents (CN201810627166.4).

In 2024, Vumetinib achieved sales of RMB 3.5 billion, a staunch financial support and strong assurance for Elis' new drug research and development, underscoring the sustainability of the "R&D-profit-re-R&D" model adopted by domestic pharmaceutical companies.

The design excellence award case, titled "cars" and owned by NIO Technology (Anhui) Co., Ltd., was recognised for its original industrial aesthetics and technological innovation.

The design application of this case claimed priority to a European design patent application. However, there are some marked differences between the Chinese and European patent systems in view submission requirements: while European patent law allows flexible combination of views and imposes no mandatory requirements on one-to-one correspondence between views of the claimed and priority designs, the Chinese patent law requires strict matching between the views and complete depiction of the key points of design. As the priority application contains a number of unclassified views, along with differences in certain details or configuration mismatches in some of the views, direct submission of these views is likely to result in rejection upon examination. To address the issues, our attorneys, under the pressure of a tight timeline, efficiently completed the application work by having the views precisely matched, and where necessary, intelligently rectified, as well as their legal compliance ensured. This case is an example of the global value of Chinese design patents.

This year's China Patent Award issued 30 gold awards, 60 silver awards, and 607 excellence awards to invention and utility model patents, and 10 gold awards, 15 silver awards, and 47 excellence awards to design patents.

CPA is committed to providing the highest standard of professional IP services in adherence to its pledge of "optimising the protection of clients' IP rights and interests". To live up to the trust and confidence of our clients, we will spare no efforts to continue providing our domestic and foreign clients with comprehensive, high-quality and one-stop IP services.