SIPO release details for validating China invention patents in Cambodia

Further to our article on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Intellectual Property Cooperation between Cambodia's Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts (MIH) and the People’s Republic of China (SIPO), on 2 March 2018, during a press conference, SIPO released some practice details in regard to the validation of China patents in Cambodia. We outline these below:

Conditions to validate a China patent in Cambodia

The China patent refers to China invention patents only, while utility model and design patents are not covered under the current Cooperation.

The request for validation must meet the following two conditions:

the China patent should be in good order;

the filing date of the China patent should be after 22 January 2003.

The request for validation can be filed any time during the validity of the China patent.

Protection term

Cambodia admits the filing date of the China patent after the validation in Cambodia and the term of protection shall be 20 years calculated from the Chinese filing date. For example, if the China patent has a 10-year protection term remaining, the term of protection in Cambodia is also the remaining 10 years.

Required documents for validation

The validation must be conducted through a Cambodian local agency accompanied by the following documents:

Registration form

Certified patent document and certificate of patent register issued by SIPO

Patent document in Khmer, which can be filed within 6 months of the validation

The MIH only conducts the formality examination. If there is any deficiency in the request, the petitioner needs to make a rectification within 2 months. Otherwise, it can be registered in around 20 days. The MIH shall assign the patent number and issue the patent certificate.

As there is no time limit for the validation of a China patent in Cambodia, the request can be conducted any time after the validity of the China patent. For the corresponding technology that does not have a counterpart Cambodia patent application and has already been put in use before the validation of China patent comes into force, such right of prior use would be protected according to the local regulations.

The MIH will announce the details of practice in the near future.

The validation is unliateral - SIPO does not accept the validation of Cambodia patents.