Notice on Issuing the Service Guide for Shanghai Patent Priority Examination Recommendation Services

The Shanghai Municipal Intellectual Property Office issued a notice on September 20, 2026 — published on the Shanghai municipal government portal on September 22 — releasing the Service Guide for Shanghai Patent Priority Examination Recommendation Services. The guide implements the Patent Priority Examination Management Measures (CNIPA Order No. 85) and is intended to standardize the city's priority examination recommendation work, support the business environment, and serve the development of new quality productive forces.

The guide applies to invention patent applications in substantive examination for which no first office action has yet issued, to utility model and design patent applications (with the application fee paid in full and classification completed), and to reexamination and invalidation cases across all three patent types. It serves both Shanghai-based and overseas patent applicants, reexamination requesters, and parties to invalidation proceedings. Requesters file through the patent affairs service module of CNIPA's patent business system; overseas requesters may submit paper filings to the Office's administrative service center. From September 1, 2026, first-time requesters must also submit a statement of R&D and industrialization capability, alongside supporting evidence, applicant identity documents, and prior-art or prior-design materials.

The Office reviews requests for formal defects — notifying applicants once of any corrections needed — and decides whether to recommend within seven working days except in difficult or complex cases, feeding the result back through the CNIPA system. Recommendation is merit-based. The guide also lists grounds on which recommendation is generally refused: divisional applications whose parent already received accelerated examination; same-day dual invention and utility model filings for the same creation; and applications or cases that have already received priority or other accelerated examination in their respective procedures. False materials or bad-faith conduct will be reported to CNIPA.

Notably, the Office charges no fee for priority examination recommendations, and requests submitted before September 1, 2026 continue under the previous Measures and the earlier guide, while those filed on or after that date are handled under the new Measures and this guide. Where CNIPA maintains separate rules on priority examination request channels, those rules prevail.

Original Link: http://sipa.sh.gov.cn/tzgg/20260922/1785451d56c7411f8444bb725ae479d1.html