Responding to CNIPA Refusals under the Hague Agreement Design System: Orthogonal Views, Partial Designs, and Amendment Boundaries

What Do the Guidelines for Patent Examination Actually Require for Drawings?

Two decisive provisions govern drawing requirements, both located in Part I, Chapter 3 of the Guidelines for Patent Examination (2023 Edition).

The first is Section 4.2.2, which governs drawing execution. Drawings shall conform to Chinese national standards for mechanical and technical drawing regarding orthogonal projection, line width, and sectional views; the shape of the design shall be depicted in solid lines of uniform thickness. The same sentence explicitly prohibits a specific list of lines from representing shape: shading lines, indicator lines, center lines, dimension lines, and dash-dot lines. Note what this list includes and excludes: it does not mention axis lines; it does include indicator lines and dash-dot lines—yet the same section permits indicator lines to indicate section positions, directions, enlarged details, or transparent portions. The prohibition applies to using these lines to define shape, not to their presence anywhere on the sheet. Two-dot chain lines are permitted to represent omitted intermediate portions of elongated articles.

The second provision is the list of drawing defects in Section 4.2.4, anchored in Article 27.2 of the Patent Law. Foreign applicants most often encounter item (3): product contour lines containing shading lines, indicator lines, broken lines, center lines, dimension lines, or dash-dot lines that should be deleted or modified. Item (4)(ii) addresses incomplete six-view representations of three-dimensional products, subject to exceptions for symmetry and portions unseen or invisible in normal use.

A third provision explains why certain applications receive no office action at all. Under Section 10.3(4), a preliminary examiner has ex officio authority to delete clearly improper lines (including shading lines) upon notifying the applicant. Thus, drawings containing shading do not invariably cause a refusal. Sometimes they result in an official drawing that you did not draw yourself.

The practical conclusion is self-evident: remove engineering drawing lines before filing in China. Eliminating shading lines removes decorative surface effects that examiners may misinterpret as grooves or surface ornamentation, without altering the true contour.

How Many Views Are Required for a Hague Designation?

The rule stated in Part I, Chapter 3, Section 4.2 of the Guidelines is straightforward: for three-dimensional products, if the design points cover all six sides, six orthogonal projection views are required; if the design points cover only one or several sides, orthogonal views of the relevant sides shall be submitted, while remaining sides may be shown in orthogonal or perspective views. Sides unseen or invisible in normal use may be omitted, provided the reason is stated in the brief explanation. For two-dimensional products, one view is sufficient if the design points cover one side; two views are required if they cover both sides. Section 4.2.1 establishes the standard names for the six views: front, back, left, right, top, and bottom views.

The Guidelines do not impose an unconditional six-view requirement on paper. That is the statutory position.

Our practical guidance differs and warrants specific explanation. In Hague designations, our firm recommends submitting all six orthogonal views from the outset. The reason is procedural rather than theoretical. Whether the design points cover six sides is a determination made by the examiner, not an assertion controlled by the applicant. If views are omitted, the applicant is left to argue from a defensive posture under a four-month deadline—and supplementing missing views at that stage is restricted by Article 33 of the Patent Law. Submitting all six views eliminates this dispute entirely. If a specific side genuinely cannot be shown (such as the base of a permanently fixed appliance), omitting that view is defensible; but the explanation is required in the initial brief explanation rather than deferred to an office action response.

A specific exemption applies to Hague designations: under Part VI, Chapter 2, Section 5.2.1, view names and designations in the international application are deemed compliant with Section 4.2.1. An application will not be rejected solely for using non-standard view names. Section 2(1) also bars examiners from rejecting an international application solely on the basis of formal defects. The remaining inquiry is the substantive test under Section 5.2.2 and Article 27.2: do the drawings clearly show the overall or partial design of the product?

Why Do Drawings Prepared for US and European Applications Run Afoul of Article 27.2?

This section describes drafting conventions rather than foreign legal provisions.

Surface shading is standard practice in US design filings. It is permitted rather than strictly mandatory—the rules state that shading "may" be used, and the MPEP does not make it compulsory—but draftspersons use it routinely, and US design drawings entering our firm almost universally feature shading. European practice is more varied; both line shading and photographic renderings appear. Neither office insists on a full six-view orthogonal set as the mandatory default for three-dimensional products, nor does either treat perspective distortion as a defect under Section 4.2.4(1).

The consequence is predictable. Drawings optimized for one office undergo a different interpretation in China: parallel hatching lines read by a US examiner as curved surface shading may be interpreted by a Chinese examiner as physical grooves, surface patterns, or indeterminate contours. That ambiguity constitutes a defect under Article 27.2 of the Patent Law.

An empirical study referenced by our firm—conducted by a Chinese law firm examining 100 refusal notices issued by CNIPA in Hague designations—found that approximately 68% of notices cited Article 27.2. Missing orthogonal views, shading ambiguities, and unclear curved surfaces were recurring causes. This figure reflects the proportion within the sampled refusal notices; it does not represent the overall application refusal rate, and we do not cite it as such.

How Much Time Do You Have to Respond, and What Can You Actually Amend?

Four months. That time limit derives from Part V, Chapter 7, Section 1.2 of the Guidelines, which lists designated periods and establishes a four-month period for applicants to respond to a Notification of Refusal in an international design application. It is not a period prescribed by Rule 136 of the Implementing Regulations, nor is it a statutory time limit.

This classification has two major legal consequences.

First, regarding the calculation of the start date: under Section 2.1(2), all designated periods run from the date of service. Service is defined in Part V, Chapter 6, Section 2.3.1: for documents delivered by mail or in person, service is presumed fifteen days from the date of dispatch, unless the applicant proves actual receipt on a different date; for electronic delivery, service occurs on the date the document enters an accepted electronic system, and when dates diverge, dispatch date is presumed. The date on which the period begins is excluded from calculation, and a period calculated in months expires on the corresponding day of the final month (Section 2.3).

Second, regarding extensions: because this four-month period is a designated period, Section 4.1 applies: an extension may be requested for justifiable reasons, and only designated periods are extendable. The extension request is required before the expiration of the period, accompanied by stated reasons and payment of the monthly extension fee. Section 4.2 sets the limits: extensions are calculated in whole months, cannot exceed two months in total, and are generally permitted only once per notification. Any advice suggesting that this period is non-extendable is incorrect and deprives applicants of legitimate procedural time.

Procedural and language requirements derive from Part VI, Chapter 2, Section 3.3: the applicant is required to appoint a licensed Chinese patent agency under Article 18 of the Patent Law and submit the response within the designated period; written observations shall be submitted in Chinese, while formal amendments to application documents shall be submitted in English.

Next is the substantive scope of permitted amendments. Article 33 of the Patent Law establishes the outer boundary, and Part I, Chapter 3, Section 10 explains its application to designs: if an amended design constitutes a different design compared to the original application, the amendment exceeds the scope of the original drawings; if the amended matter was already shown or can be directly and unambiguously determined from the original drawings, it remains within scope. Deleting shading lines from contours does not create a different design. In contrast, adding a bottom view never previously shown creates a different design.

Within that outer boundary sits a second, stricter limitation. Under Section 10.2, the following three types of amendments are rejected even if they do not exceed the original scope: converting an overall design into a partial design; converting a partial design into an overall design; and altering one claimed portion of a product into a different portion. In Section 10.1, these three amendments are likewise prohibited from overcoming defects after the initial two-month voluntary amendment window from the filing date. If a response contains one of these prohibited amendments, the examiner will issue a further notification; if the applicant does not withdraw it, examination proceeds on the unamended text.

When Can You File a Divisional Application, and What Is the Real Priority Risk?

The divisional route is governed by Part VI, Chapter 2, Section 5.6 of the Guidelines, applying Rule 141 of the Implementing Regulations. Where an international application contains two or more designs, the applicant may file divisional applications voluntarily or in response to an examiner's objection, and divisionals are processed as domestic applications. This establishes two distinct deadlines, neither of which corresponds to the four-month response period:

- Voluntary Divisional by Applicant: Within two months from the date of international publication of the international application. - Divisional in Response to Examiner's Objection: At the latest within two months from the date of domestic grant publication of the parent application.

Once these deadlines expire, or if the parent application has been rejected or deemed withdrawn without restoration of rights, divisional applications can no longer be filed. In addition, a divisional application is bounded by the disclosure of the parent application in the same manner as the parent itself; it cannot create scope for subject matter never shown in the international publication. A divisional is a procedural remedy for lack of unity. It is not a remedy for drawings that never existed.

Our Firm's Perspective on Late-Filed Views in China. Priority under Article 29 of the Patent Law adheres strictly to the disclosure of the earlier application. If a response supplements views of a side never shown in the priority document, the added subject matter cannot claim priority support and takes a later effective date for novelty purposes. Any disclosure entering the public domain in the interim—product launches, trade shows, catalogs, or the applicant's own marketing—can then be cited as prior art against that subject matter under Article 23. Article 33 usually intercepts such amendments during examination. If it does not, the vulnerability simply transfers to invalidation proceedings, where the consequences of exposure are far more severe.

This risk is one-directional. It attaches to views added after the priority filing, not to the deletion of views or lines. Deleting shading lines while preserving contours does not alter the effective date, because it introduces no subject matter lacking in the priority document. That asymmetry constitutes its practical value: cleaning drawings is safe; supplementing drawings is not.

The practical lesson lies in front-end control rather than post-filing repair. Wherever a filing strategy includes China, a full set of six orthogonal projection views should be included in the initial application from day one, regardless of what the home office is willing to accept. Subsequent repairs remain strictly bounded by the initial disclosure, and no amount of drafting skill can expand that perimeter.