A Comparative Study of Systems of Utility Model Patent Search Report in China's Mainland and Taiwan Region

I. An overview In the patent system of the civil law countries, the utility model patent, also known as the "petty invention", is granted to protect petty inventions that are not highly inventive, but very useful. For example, in the patent systems in Germany and Japan1 can be found provisions concerning utility model patent. After the patent system was launched in China's Mainland on 1 April 1985, the utility model patent is well received by the industry thanks to the adoption of the "preliminary examinat...