The Patent Law of the People's Republic of China, adopted at the 22nd Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China on October 17, 2020, is hereby promulgated and shall come into force as of June 1, 2021.

The revision of the Patent Law mainly includes three key aspects:

The first is to strengthen the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of the patentee, including increasing the compensation for patent infringement, improving the burden of proof, improving the protection measures of pre-litigation acts, improving the administrative protection of patents, adding the principle of good faith, adding the patent term compensation system and the relevant provisions of the early settlement procedure of drug patent disputes.

The second is to promote the implementation and application of patents, including improving the service invention system, adding a new patent open licensing system, and strengthening patent conversion services.

The third is to improve the patent licensing system, including further improving the relevant system of design protection, increasing the application of the novelty grace period, and improving the patent evaluation and reporting system.

In order to further strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, a new system of punitive damages has been added in this amendment to the Patent Law. The people's court can determine the amount of compensation within one to five times the amount calculated according to the multiple of the loss suffered by the right holder, the interests obtained by the infringer or the patent license fee, and give full play to the deterrent power of the law. The revised patent law also raises the amount of legal compensation, raising the upper limit to 5 million yuan and the lower limit to 30,000 yuan.

In order to meet the actual needs of enterprises, this amendment to the patent Law further improves the design related system.

一是明确给予局部外观设计专利保护。

二是延长外观设计专利保护期限；将外观设计专利保护期限延长为15年。

三是增加外观设计专利申请国内优先权制度；明确申请人自外观设计在国内第一次提出专利申请之日起六个月内，又就相同主题在国内提出专利申请的，可以享有优先权。

为更好地应对疫情防控等紧急状态和非常情况，促进相关发明创造在疾病治疗等方面的及时应用，解决公众健康问题，回应创新主体放宽不丧失新颖性例外规定的需求，本次专利法在不丧失新颖性例外的适用情形中增加“在国家出现紧急状态或者非常情况时，为公共利益目的首次公开”。

中国国家知识产权局条法司司长宋建华表示，这样既能满足当前抗击疫情的实践需要，还能为今后在其他紧急状态或者非常情况下的适用留有空间。