Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, bordering to the north with both the Republic of Mongolia and Russia, will gradually modernize its current patent application system by employing electronic approaches, reported at a training program held locally dedicated to promote electronic patent filings. The effort, due to its estimated results in substantially reducing the costs in labor, material resources and finance and greatly increasing the efficiency of patent examination, will be of landmark importance to the further improvement of the Region’s IP service regime and the enhancement of the comprehensive competitiveness of local patent agencies.

Among all the four patent agencies established in the Region, which are located respectively in cities of Hohhot, Baotou, Wuhai and Chifeng, only that in Chifeng has adopted electronic service in patent application. In 2011, filings submitted electronically accounted for 32.95% of the Region's total and demonstrated a monthly increasing trend. It is expected that the modernized approach would facilitate in solving the challenges faced by the Region's IP system, such as lack of IP agencies, insufficient services as well as incompetence in IP-related information retrieval, early warning, industry analysis and patent evaluation.

Featuring high efficiency and contributing to fast response in patent examination, electronic patent filings could help to shorten the pending period from application to examination up to within one working day, while could also effectively reduce the costs of agencies and applicants.

(Source: IPR in China)