Patent registration in Hong Kong

Patents are granted by the Hong Kong patents registry, part of the Intellectual Property Department. There are two kinds and three ways to reach one, and the choice is settled by how long the invention has to earn rather than by which form is cheapest.

Which countries a technology needs at all sits on our page about registering marks, patents and copyrights, and the territory’s wider corporate picture is gathered under Hong Kong.

Three doors, and what each one asks

Direct filing, examined here

Up to twenty years, both formality and substantive examination, and no limit on the claims. It suits an invention that is genuinely complex.

Re-registration of a granted patent

Where the invention was first filed with the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the European Patent Office designating the United Kingdom, or the United Kingdom office, the registrar checks formalities only.

Short-term patent

Up to eight years, no more than two independent claims and no check of novelty before grant. Grant can be deferred twelve months while a search report is obtained.

The patent you cannot yet use

A short-term patent is granted on formalities and a search report. Nobody has ruled on novelty, and the registry says plainly that grant alone will not start proceedings in court.

First a certificate of substantive examination has to exist, or the examination must have been requested and not stopped by the court, or a court must have certified the patent valid. That examination costs the same four thousand dollars as a standard one, so the cheap route reaches the same counter as soon as somebody copies you.

Two six-month doors on the re-registration route

The first stage is a request to record, due within six months of the foreign application being published. This is the deadline most often lost: nothing has been granted anywhere yet and the file feels unfinished.

The second is a request for registration and grant, due within six months of the record being published here or the foreign patent being granted, whichever is later. A long wait is bridged by a maintenance fee from the fifth year.

The price list, stage by stage

What the registry will ask of you

• A description of the invention, or a reference to an earlier application containing it in full.
• The applicant identified, and a statement of who invented it.
• For re-registration, the number, publication number and publication date of the foreign application.
• For a short-term patent, a search report from a recognised searching authority.

Where the product also carries a name worth protecting, that is trade mark registration; whether the rights sit with the company at all is an audit of your intellectual property. A patent attorney is worth involving before a public demonstration, not after one.

The renewal calendar, and where it starts

A standard patent pays its first renewal on the fourth anniversary of the filing date that follows grant, then every anniversary to the end, at a rising rate. A short-term patent pays once before the end of the fourth year for the remaining four. Both carry six months of grace, at a late fee.

Sources: the two patent types are set out by the Intellectual Property Department, the court condition in its note on enforcement, the six-month stages in the re-registration route, the three-year and four-month periods in the direct route, the amounts in the fee list and the dates in maintenance and renewal.