On October 27, 2016, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) published the Draft (For Public Comment) of Revisions to the Patent Examination Guidelines. The Chinese text is available here. Comments on the draft should be submitted before November 27.
In the important area of post filing data supplementation for pharmaceutical inventions, the proposed revisions clarify that such supplementation is permissible where “the technical effect to be proved by the supplemental experimental data shall be that which can be obtained in the contents of the [original] application disclosure by one who is ordinarily skilled in the art.” 对于申请日之后补交的实验数据，审查员应当予以审查。补交实验数据所证明的技术效果应当是所属技术领域的技术人员能够从专利申请公开的内容中得到的。
The examination guidelines also loosen the standards for obtaining business method patents if there is a technical element to the novel business method. Presumably these inventions were previously denied patentability on the basis that they were intellectual rules or methods under Article 25 of the Patent Law. The proposed guidelines state:
Claims related to business methods that contain both business rules and methods and technical characteristics, shall not be excluded from the possibilities of obtaining patent rights be Article 25 of the Patent Law. 涉及商业模式的权利要求，如果既包含商业规则和方法的内容，又包含技术特征，则不应当依据专利法第二十五条排除其获得专利权的可能性。
The examination guidelines also appear to loosen the standards for obtaining software enabled inventions:
In the second line of Part II, chapter IX, section 5.2, paragraph 1, the third sentence of the Patent Examination Guidelines are amended from, “and describe in detail which parts of the computer program are to be performed and how to perform them” to provide that “The components may not only include hardware, but may also include programs.” 将《专利审查指南》第二部分第九章第5.2节第1段第3句中的“并详细描述该计算机程序的各项功能是由哪些组成部分完成以及如何完成这些功能”修改为“所述组成部分不仅可以包括硬件，还可以包括程序”.
Postscripts (Nov 18 and 28, 2016):
1. Here’s Jacob Schindler’s October 31, 2016 commentary in IAM on this blog, and here’s another blog comparing US and Chinese software patent developments.
2. Here are AIPLA’s comments on the proposed revisions to the patent examination guidelines (Nov. 25, 2016 – bilingual).
