I. The disclosure requirements for the specification and drawings are relaxed.

1. Based on the current Patent Examination Guidelines, the drawings of a design patent application shall disclose all of the sides of the article to which the claimed design is applied; the omission of views from the drawings is allowed only if the views are symmetrical or identical, or where the omitted sides are not noticed by an ordinary consumer when purchasing the products. In the amended Patent Examination Guidelines, views that are not contained in the drawings will be simply considered to form no part of the design, and the specification is not required to state the reasons for omitting these views.

2. Further explanations about the omission of views are provided: if the disclosures of the specification and drawings are not sufficient to disclose the claimed design or cannot definitely disclose the scope of the claimed design, the disclosures will be considered not to fulfill the requirement of enablement. Although the requirements for drawings of design patent applications are loosened, attention shall be paid to the fulfillment of the enablement requirements when preparing the drawings.

II. Buildings and interior designs are clearly specified as eligible subject matters for design patents.

1. Under the Patent Act effective in 2005, the article to which a design is applied shall not be real estate such as buildings, gardens and interior designs. Such requirement was deleted in 2013 when the Patent Act was amended to allow that immovable properties can be subject matters for design patents. The Patent Examination Guidelines are now amended to explicitly state that buildings, interior designs and bridges can be statutory subject matters for design patents.

2. Further examples are listed in the Patent Examination Guidelines showing drawings of design patent applications claiming the designs applied interior designs and buildings.

III. The requirements for filing a divisional application based on a design patent application are relaxed.

1. In addition to the requirement that a divisional application cannot go beyond the disclosure of the specification and drawings of the parent application, the current guidelines further stipulate that a divisional application cannot be filed if the original application does not substantively disclose two or more designs. Such a provision will be canceled in the amended guidelines.

2. Examples for divisional applications claiming different scopes of protection from the parent application are further provided.

IV.  The regulations for graphic image designs are amended. The current guidelines explain that the article to which a graphic image design is applied should be a screen, display, etc. With the developments of technologies, a graphic image design is not certainly projected to a screen, display, etc. For example, virtual keyboards can be projected onto a table top from an electronic device. The previous regulations exclude graphic image designs that are not projected to a screen or a display from patent protection. After the amendments, the guidelines clearly indicate that the article to which a graphic image design is applied can also be a “computer program product,” and the drawings do not have to show a non-claimed screen, display, etc. to which the graphic image design is applied. The "computer program product" refers to a product that contains a computer-readable program or software and is not limited to the form of the product. Thereby, design patent protection will be broadened to cover all products that can produce graphic images through computer programs or the like.

V. Miscellaneous points:

1. The disclosure requirements for a design claiming colors are further explained. For applications filing the drawings in black-and-white or grey-scale, the specification may include statements to exclude the black, white or grey color from the claimed design.

2. The explanation about “the shape of an article solely dictated by its function” is amended. The amended guidelines explain that where the shape of an article completely depends on the considerations of function without any room left for the creation of visual appearances, such shape is solely dictated by the function of the article and is not patentable.

3. The explanation about the criteria for determining the novelty and creativeness of a design claiming colors is amended. Under the amended guidelines, if the difference between the claimed design and the prior art is only a single color selected or changed from the existing color system, the single color applied by the claimed design should be regarded as a trivial change not affecting the overall visual impression and should be determined not to possess novelty. However, if the claimed design involves two or more color schemes, further consideration shall be taken to determine whether the overall appearance presented by such color schemes can be easily conceived by a person having ordinary skill in the art. 

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