Design Patent Filing in China

Fifteen years from the filing date, for applications filed on or after 1 June 2021 when the fourth amendment raised the term from ten years. Designs filed earlier keep the original ten-year term.

Yes, for applications filed on or after 1 June 2021. Article 2(4) defines a design as covering an overall or partial product. You claim the part in solid line and show the rest in broken line, and the brief description must also identify the claimed part in words.

Not fully. Preliminary examination checks subject matter, drawing sufficiency, unity, added matter, and whether the design is obviously not novel — there is no full prior-art search unless someone later files an invalidation.

Up to ten similar designs of the same product under Article 31(2), or two or more designs of the same class customarily sold as a set. Used well this is the biggest single saving available on a design portfolio.

Six months, not the twelve that inventions and utility models get. China also introduced a six-month domestic priority for designs in the 2021 amendment.

You hold an enforceable right from grant, but because designs are unexamined, Chinese courts and e-commerce platforms generally expect a patent evaluation report from CNIPA first — official fee RMB 2,400. Get it before sending a warning letter, not after.

More vulnerable than an invention patent, because nobody searched the prior art before grant. In a sample of CNIPA invalidation decisions from July 2025, roughly 60% of challenged design patents were invalidated in full — an argument for a prior-design search before filing, not against designs.