Recently, agent Xuemei Zhang of Beijing Janlea Patent Agency Company represented Li Xiangdong’s invention patent application, “A Method for the Anti-Freezing and Unclogging of Natural Gas”, whose review at the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office was concluded. The review request of the applicant Li Xiangdong received the support from the Patent Reexamination Board. The Patent Reexamination Board, in accordance with the law, canceled the rejection decision made by the State Intellectual Property Office on January 14th 2013. The original evaluation department of the State Intellectual Property Office would continue its evaluation.

The applicant Li Xiangdong filed the invention patent application with the invention name of “A Method for the Anti-Freezing and Unclogging of Natural Gas” to the State Intellectual Property Office on February 25th 2010. The application no. was 201010113949.4 and the publicizing date was July 14th 2010. 

After practical investigation, the original evaluation department of the State Intellectual Property Office, on the grounds that the terms 1-25 of the claims in the application had requested for the protection of technical schemes that were not in compliance with article 22 paragraph 3 of the Patent Law, rejected the application on January 14th 2013.

After thorough analysis, agent Zhang Wenyi argued that with basis of changing the claims, the application could overcome the weaknesses it had in the rejection decision. After careful preparation, the applicant Li Xiangdong filed the review request to the Patent Reexamination Board on April 19th 2013. He put terms 2 and 3 into term 1 of the claims and changed the corresponding citing relationships of the claims.

The collegial panel posted the review notice on December 10th 2013. The review applicant submitted the opinions statement on January 20th 2014 and changed the claims, with the prescribed anti-freezing agent as “crystallized particles” in term 1 of the claims. 

After evaluation, the Patent Reexamination Board decided as follows: Based on the “Anti-Freezing Aqueous Solution” publicized by document no. 1, it was not obvious to use anti-freezing agents in the form of crystallized particles for the technicians of this field. Term 1 of the claims, in comparison to document no. 1 and publicly known common knowledge, possessed notable practical characteristics and remarkable improvement. The invention possessed the innovation described in article 22 paragraph 3 of the Patent Law.

The application was a model example of invention patent application succeeding in review after rejection. In this case, Janlea’s patent agent, through analysis and study of the application, formulated the correct responsive strategies and methods, protecting the rights of the client of our patent company to the largest extent and receiving appreciation from the client.