Amendments of PCT Chinese National Phase Application at the time of Entry

Normally, The specification of a PCT Chinese national phase application should be based on the specification of PCT International Publication. No matter whether there are amendments in the PCT International Phase or at the time of entry the applicant wishes to makes amendments, a Chinese translation of the specification of PCT International Publication should be always filed.

If there are amendments in the PCT International Phase based on Article 19 or Article 34, and the applicant wishes the amendments to be the examination basis in China, applicant should file the Chinese translation of the amendments at the time of entry (as substitute pages to the specification of International Publication) or within three months from the date of entry.

Amendments based on Article 19 should be reflected in the International Search Report, Amendments based on Article 34 should be reflected in the attachments to the International Preliminary Examination Report.

If the applicant wishes the amendments based on Article 41 of PCT to be the examination basis in China, applicant should file the Chinese translation of amendments at the time of entry. There should be detailed explanations for the amendments, the detailed explanations can be comparison charts of the contents before and after amendment, or amendment indications on copy of original documents.

It is worth to mention that some applicants will compress, delete or merge some of the claims at the time of entry, to decrease the number of the claims so as to save application fees or examination fees. In fact, such act does not work in China, since the official fees are based on the numbers of claims in the specification of PCT International Publication.