On March 14, 2026, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the “Guidelines for Patent Applications Involving Standards” (hereinafter referred to as the “Guidelines”) on its official website. The release aims to address the increasing number of patent applications involving standards and the heightened societal attention on this area, providing applicants with policy interpretations and practical guidance within the current patent legal framework. While the Guidelines focus on the telecommunications field, the principles and strategies discussed therein may also serve as a reference for other technical fields. The full text is divided into four chapters. Starting from foundational concepts, it elaborates on the synergistic relationship between standards and patents, with key recommendations focusing on filing and drafting strategies. This article will briefly summarize the main content of the Guidelines and offer certain perspectives and operational recommendations formed through our practice.

I. Basic Concepts of Standards and Its Synergistic Relationship with Patents

The Guidelines first define the concept of a standard. According to the Standardization Law, a standard refers to technical requirements that need to be unified within a specific field. According to the definitions of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), a standard is embodied in a set of documents for common and repeated use, characterized by features such as being “established by consensus”, “approved by a recognized body”, and “providing rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results”. International standardization activities generally follow common procedures including proposal, drafting, deliberation, solicitation of comments, approval, publication, and amendment.

Regarding the synergy between patents and standards, the Guidelines clarify that “patent applications involving standards” refer to invention patent applications where the claimed subject matter is closely related to the technical content of a standard, ultimately aiming to become a Standard Essential Patent (SEP). The core of an SEP lies in containing at least one “essential claim,” i.e., a patent claim that cannot be circumvented when implementing the standard.

To determine whether a patent qualifies as an SEP, the Guidelines elaborate on the methodology for “correspondence analysis between standards and patents.” This method utilizes a tool called a Claim Chart (CC) to compare, on an element-by-element basis, the technical features of the patent claims against the descriptions within the standard. The Guidelines enumerate three scenarios of “Correspondence”:

• The description in the standard is identical to the claim feature;
• The description in the standard is a specific embodiment (subordinate concept) of the claim feature;
• The feature, although not explicitly stated verbatim in the standard, constitutes content that can be directly and unambiguously determined from the standard.

The Guidelines also list two scenarios of “Non-Correspondence”:

• The standard lacks a relevant description;
• The description in the standard is a broader generalization (superordinate concept) of the claim feature.

The Claim Chart template provided in the Guidelines consists of four columns: (1) Technical Feature of the Claim; (2) Description in the Standard; (3) Correspondence Analysis; and (4) Conclusion on Correspondence. A CC of this structure is suitable for conducting correspondence analysis between a granted patent and a standard. However, the Claim Chart also plays a significant role at the stage where a standard has been approved or published but the patent has not yet been granted. It can serve as a guide during prosecution to prevent amendments made during patent examination from resulting in a granted patent that does not correspond to the standard. We recommend that applicants prepare a Claim Chart – or communicate the relevant information to their patent attorney with instructions to prepare one – immediately upon learning that a standard related to their patent application has been approved. Furthermore, whenever claims referenced in the CC are amended, the CC should be correspondingly updated to reflect the correspondence between the latest version of claims and the standard. Given that the objective of the patent application is to obtain an SEP, the conclusion in the fourth column should invariably be “Correspond,” rendering that column less meaningful in practice. In operational practice, the fourth column of the CC can be replaced with “Support in Patent Specification for the Feature.” This allows both the applicant and the attorney to maintain a clearer overall grasp of the technical solution during prosecution and facilitates the presentation of arguments regarding the basis for amendments (i.e., that they do not introduce new matter) to the examiner.

II. Patent Filing Strategies during Various Phases of Standardization

The Guidelines delineate the standardization process into three phases – initial, intermediate, and later – and identify the key focuses for patent portfolio development during each phase:

• Initial Phase (Proposal Stage): Applicants should assess potential development trends of the standard and conduct preliminary patent application filings.
• Intermediate Phase (Drafting, Deliberation, and Comment Solicitation Stages): This phase typically lasts several years. Applicants need to engage in detailed and targeted portfolio development. This includes adjusting the scope of protection through claim amendments, and filing new patent applications based on discussions occurring during the standards development process.
• Later Phase (Approval, Publication, and Amendment Stages): Once a standard is approved or published, applicants should amend pending claims of patent applications in alignment with the final version of the standard, striving to obtain granted patents that correspond to the standard.

To achieve the aforementioned objectives, the Guidelines elaborate on three specific filing strategies:

• Early Filing Utilizing the Priority System: Applicants are advised to file a patent application as early as possible before submitting a standard proposal, and subsequently file a later application within the 12-month priority period to claim the benefit of the earlier filing date. This strategy secures an early priority date to defend against prior art while allowing time for optimizing and refining the claims. The Guidelines also remind applicants to pay attention to the regulations concerning foreign filing license/confidentiality examination requirements.
• Utilizing the Grace Period for Novelty as a Remedial Measure: Addressing exceptional situations where a patent application is filed after a proposal submission due to provisional disclosures or oversight, the Implementing Regulations of the Patent Law (effective 2024) expanded the scope of the novelty grace period to include “academic or technological meetings organized by international organizations and recognized by the relevant competent authorities under the State Council.” Applicants may submit a statement along with supporting evidence to invoke this provision, thereby preventing such prior disclosure from destroying the novelty of the application. The Guidelines emphasize that this strategy is solely a remedial measure and should not be relied upon as a regular practice.
• Utilizing Deferred Examination to Align with Standard Finalization: The standard-setting process is typically lengthy (often 3-4 years). Premature grant of a patent risks misalignment with the finalized standard. To better synchronize the patent prosecution timeline with the finalization of the standard, applicants are advised to file the Request for Substantive Examination close to the expiration of the three-year period from the priority date and, concurrently with that request, submit a Request for Deferred Examination (which can provide a deferral of up to three additional years). Consequently, an invention patent application can remain pending for a maximum of six years before examination, providing an extended window to amend the claims in correspondence with the published standard.

While applicants may independently refer to these filing strategies for patent applications involving standards, we recommend applicants to enhance communication and collaboration with patent agencies to achieve an optimal filing strategy. For instance, patent agencies have robust deadline management systems to prevent missing various statutory time limits, including those for claiming priority and filing a request for substantive examination. In cases involving inventors from multiple countries or jurisdictions, patent agencies can also advise on appropriate strategies to satisfy foreign filing license requirements across all relevant jurisdictions while securing the earliest possible filing or priority date. Moreover, although not explicitly mentioned in the Guidelines, if a longer pendency period is required, other strategies such as filing divisional applications may also be considered. Some applicants may prefer early patent grant as a general practice; however, such a preference is often unsuitable for patent applications involving standards.

III. Strategies for Drafting Patent Applications Involving Standards

The Guidelines first outline general strategies for drafting patent applications involving standards, followed by specific drafting recommendations addressing four aspects: Inventive Step, Alternative Embodiments, Added Subject Matter, and Claim Clarity.

Four primary recommendations provided in the Guidelines regarding General Strategies:

• Terminological Alignment with the Standard: The wording of the claims should, to the extent possible, be consistent with the terminology and expressions likely to be used in the standard. Independent claims should not have features unlikely to be included in the standard.
• Hierarchical Claim Structure: Independent claims should provide a degree of generalization. Dependent claims should set forth multiple alternative solutions to cover various potential implementation paths. Further dependent claims should provide detailed implementation specifics, thereby facilitating subsequent amendments to align the claims with the finalized standard.
• Unilateral Claim Drafting: Claims should be drafted from the perspective of a single entity’s actions (“unilateral drafting”) rather than as interactions among multiple entities, as this simplifies infringement determination.
• Comprehensive Disclosure of Embodiments: The specification should describe various embodiments as comprehensively as possible.

In practice, we recommend adhering to these general strategies even for normal patent applications not specifically directed at standards. Clearly, patentees will welcome a patent with broad scope, flexible prosecution options, and clear infringement targets. Nevertheless, these recommendations also impose higher demands on both applicants and patent attorneys. For example, the level of clarity mandated by patent law may exceed that required by a standardization organization; certain phrasing commonly used in a standard document may be inappropriate for direct use in a patent claim. In such instances, the patent specification can serve as a bridge, establishing the necessary linkage between the claim language and the standard’s terminology through appropriately drafted descriptive text.

Considerations Regarding Inventive Step

The Guidelines emphasize that telecommunications standards exhibit characteristics of global coordination, technological foresight and iteration, and technical compatibility. Many inventions lie in the optimization and refinement of technical details. To mitigate the risk of inventive step rejections, the Guidelines provide drafting and argumentation strategies for two common types of applications: adjustments and optimizations of technical means within the same generation or scenario; and technical improvements or integration across generations or scenarios.

1. For applications focused on adjustments/optimizations of technical means: The Guidelines recommend that, during drafting, the specification should include a detailed description of the technical problem and the technical effects, place emphasis on fully disclosing technical details, and demonstrate the correlation among the technical features, technical problem, and technical effects. Specifically, instead of broadly describing the technical problem as “improving performance” or “enhancing efficiency,” the focus should be on specific bottlenecks encountered in standard implementation. Likewise, the technical effects should focus on fine-tuned or optimized aspects of the technical details, with supporting evidence provided through comparisons and simulations. The claims should highlight the essential and core features as well as the interrelationships among detailed features.
2. For applications addressing new problems arising in a new generation/scenario: The Guidelines recommend that the specification provide a detailed explanation of the technical problems unique to the new generation and their underlying causes, and demonstrate the deep integration of the technical means with the new generation (e.g., network architecture or functional elements). The claims should reflect the features of the new generation and define the key technical means for solving the new problems.
3. For applications involving the continuation and evolution of general technical problems into new generations: The Guidelines advise that the specification demonstrate the deep integration of the technical solution with the new generation’s context, and the claims highlight the specific improvements made in view of the new generation’s environment.

This portion of the Guidelines is relatively extensive and includes several specific examples, offering strong practical guidance for patent prosecution.

Regarding aspect (1), the Guidelines provide an example of a HARQ system, where the inventive concept is embodied and distinguished from the prior art through the interrelation between technical features related to “field reuse” and “keeping the NDI value unchanged.”

Regarding aspect (2), the Guidelines provide an example of a solution for UCI reporting conflict, where the distinction from the prior art (conflict between BSR and UCI in 4G systems) is achieved by reflecting the newly added UCI type (beam channel quality information) in 5G systems.

Regarding aspect (3), the Guidelines provide an example of ensuring mobility during base station handover in a 5G network slicing scenario, where the distinction from the prior art in 4G systems is achieved by reflecting the change in information indication based on a functional element (network slicing) of the new generation.

We recommend studying these examples carefully and applying the drafting and office action response strategies reflected therein to practice.

Considerations Regarding Alternative Embodiments

Given the uncertainty regarding the final adopted technical solution during standard development, the Guidelines recommend drafting claims covering alternative embodiments using language such as “comprising at least one of: A, B, C, and D.” Advantages of this approach include: covering multiple potential outcomes for standard alignment; preserving flexibility by allowing for the amendment by “deletion of an alternative solution” during invalidation proceedings; and reducing the number of applications required, thereby lowering costs. The Guidelines also caution practitioners to manage the number of alternatives reasonably to avoid logical inconsistency, to consider the potential for generic claim language encompassing the alternatives and potential unity issues, and to employ appropriate claim dependency structures. Regarding the specification, the level of detail provided for each alternative should be appropriately calibrated; the specification may elaborate on each alternative comprehensively or provide differentiated levels of detail.

We recommend treating the drafting style of multiple alternatives primarily as a cost-management tool at the time of filing. During prosecution, relatively complex claims encompassing alternatives may be amended by dividing them into multiple separate dependent claims to mitigate potential issues noted in the Guidelines.

Considerations Regarding Added Subject Matter

To prevent amendments made during alignment with the standard from violating Article 33 of the Patent Law (which prohibits the introduction of new matter), the Guidelines recommend reserving sufficient amendment space in the application as originally filed. Specifically, the specification should contain a rich array of embodiments and drawings, detailing various implementation modalities. Where combinations of embodiments are contemplated, the description should employ a progressive disclosure approach or explicitly describe specific combination examples. Furthermore, when responding to office actions, the basis in the original disclosure for any amendments made should be clearly cited, facilitating an accurate assessment of whether new matter has been introduced. The Guidelines specifically caution against two scenarios: (1) substituting one term for another with a materially different meaning; and (2) indiscriminately mixing features from disparate embodiments described in the specification.

Given that an applicant’s initial technical proposal or patent filing may well differ from the final approved standard text, amendments are often necessary for applications involving standards to achieve alignment. Moreover, newly discovered prior art cited by the examiner or other objections raised may also necessitate amendments. If a claim chart has been prepared, amendments should generally be guided by the claim chart to avoid introducing technical features not listed therein, which could result in a misalignment between the claims and the standard. Applicants might contemplate relatively aggressive amendments that result in claim text differing greatly from the originally filed version to achieve alignment. In such cases, a careful assessment is required on the “directly and unambiguously determinable” standard of the Guidelines for Patent Examination, to avoid adverse examination outcomes or the grant of a patent with uncertain validity.

Considerations Regarding Claim Clarity

The Guidelines underscore that claims must clearly define the scope of protection sought. Key drafting considerations include: careful use and explanation of technical terms to ensure unambiguous meaning, and explicit definition or explanation of them either in the claims themselves or in the specification where necessary; ensuring method steps to be technically feasible and be clear in their sequence and interrelationship; avoidance of self-contradictory technical statements or ambiguous phrasing; and, for solutions involving Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, clear articulation of the correspondence between model inputs/outputs and the underlying data within the communication techniques. The Guidelines also remind patent drafters to maintain robust communication with technical staff to effectively translate technical proposals into clear, precise patent documentation.

Again, adherence to these recommendations is advisable even for normal patent applications not specifically tied to standards. The assessment of claim clarity is made from the perspective of a “person skilled in the art.” Therefore, content that the inventors perceive as sufficiently clear may still require adequate supporting disclosure, at least in the specification. During prosecution, the objective is not necessarily always to secure the broadest possible scope, but rather to ensure the claims adequately cover the relevant portions of the standard.

The Guidelines for Patent Applications Involving Standards provides applicants with a systematic operational manual spanning the entire lifecycle of standard-setting and patent prosecution. It elucidates the formation mechanism and assessment methodology for Standard Essential Patents and offers practical guidance on flexibly utilizing various procedural tools and employing fine drafting techniques to effectively enhance patent-standard correspondence, ultimately achieving synergistic advancement of technology, patents, and standards. Should you have further interest in the Guidelines or inquiries regarding SEP applications, please do not hesitate to contact us.

By Xiaobin Zong and Liaoteng Wang