By Donald Zuhn –

Last month, we reported that the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) had begun requiring that Applicants submit an inventor ID number for every inventor along with each inventor’s nationality for Chinese patent applications filed on or after January 1, 2026 (see “CNIPA Implements Inventor ID Requirement“).  Pursuant to the change in CNIPA’s inventor information requirements, the inventor ID number can be submitted at the time of filing or within two months from the date of a CNIPA notification requesting the inventor ID number.  For Chinese inventors, the ID number is the inventor’s National ID number (i.e., an 18-digit Citizen Identity Number issued by the Chinese government), and under the new requirements, a passport number or any other government-issued valid identifying number, such as a driver’s license number, could be submitted for non-Chinese inventors.

In response to our initial report, we received advice from two other Chinese law firms that muddied the waters with respect to the new inventor information requirements (see “To Require an Inventor ID, or Not to Require an Inventor ID – That Is the Question“).  According to one Chinese law firm, ID numbers would be required for Chinese inventors for applications (including Chinese national phase entry of a PCT application) filed on or after January 1, 2026, but only nationalities would need to be submitted for non-Chinese inventors.  Another Chinese firm noted that “the guidelines for foreign inventors’ ID information will be applied [by CNIPA] with a degree of flexibility,” and advised that Applicants could withhold information for non-Chinese inventors and wait to see if CNIPA issues a notification to provide the information.

Earlier this month, we received an alert from the Chinese IP firm Innotrack that provides a Letter Regarding Information about the Identity of Foreign Inventors from CNIPA (along with a machine translation of the Letter; see below).  Innotrack noted that the Letter indicates that “non-Chinese inventors are not obliged to provide relevant identifying information (e.g., passport number, residency card, etc.) at the application stage.”  The Letter, which appears to be a response to January 7 query from the U.S. Embassy in China regarding the new inventor information requirements, states that:

Article 14 of the Implementing Regulations of the Patent Law stipulates that an inventor is a person who has made a creative contribution to the substantive features of an invention.  Based on this provision, the State Intellectual Property Office revised the Patent Examination Guidelines (Order No. 84), adding requirements for the authenticity of inventors and their information, and clarifying that the request form should include the identity information of all inventors.  Regarding how foreign inventors can meet the above requirements, considering the significant differences in the identity information that inventors from different countries can provide, in the patent business processing system, for inventors and designers who are not Chinese citizens, document type and document number are not mandatory fields.  Relevant publicly available information only involves the names of inventors and designers.

Hat tip to MBHB Partner Aaron Gin for forwarding Innotrack’s email providing the CNIPA letter and English translation thereof.

Letter_EnglishDownload

For more information regarding this topic, please see:
• “To Require an Inventor ID, or Not to Require an Inventor ID – That Is the Question,” January 22, 2026
• “CNIPA Implements Inventor ID Requirement,” January 13, 2026