China deposited their instrument of accession to the Geneva Act (1999) of the Hague Agreement with the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization on February 5, 2022. The Hague design registration system will expand to 77 member states, reaching a total of 94 countries.
WIPO administers the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs, which attempts to provide applicants with a straightforward and cost-effective way to seek design protection in many member states using a single application in one language and one set of costs.
China modified its design patent law on June 1, 2021, to line with the provisions of the Hague Agreement in preparation for Hague system membership. The following are the primary issues that need to be improved: increasing the term of design protection from 10 to 15 years; providing protection on partial designs; allowing design applications to claim domestic priority.
The benefit offered by the Hague System is twofold and bi-directional
For more than a decade, China has been the leading filer of design applications. China will receive 770,362 design applications in 2020, accounting for 55.5 percent of all design applications filed globally (World Intellectual Property Indicators 2021 – Figure C16. Equivalent application design counts for the top 20 origins, 2020). Starting on May 5, 2022, when the deposition takes effect, the Hague system will also provide an alternative route for overseas applicants to seek industrial design protection in China based on an international application filed with the WIPO’s International Bureau, rather than filing a separate Chinese national application.
The Hague System provides a two-fold and bi-directional benefit. Non-resident applicants filed 18,023 design applications in China in 2020 (source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2021 – Figure C10). For the top 20 workplaces in 2020, application design is important.
The Hague system will also provide an alternative route for overseas applicants to seek industrial design protection in China based on an international application filed with the International Bureau of WIPO, rather than filing a separate Chinese national application, starting on May 5, 2022, when the deposition takes effect.
Meanwhile, China has stated that the instrument of accession will not be applied in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or the Macao Special Administrative Region because the IP systems in both regions are governed by local laws under the constitutional principle of “one country, two systems.”
You can see a list China IP firms here.