The Chinese patent law precludes the grant of patents for methods for the diagnosis or treatment of diseases. In a case handled by our firm, the following claim has been allowed:


The case was initially rejected by the Examiner. On appeal, the Reexamination Board accepted that the treatment had a cosmetic rather than therapeutic effect and thus the relevant question was not whether the invention fell within the specific prohibition against therapeutic treatments, but rather whether the claims fell within the general requirement that to be patentable an invention must have practical applicability. According to Article 22 of the law, in order to show practical applicability it is necessary that the invention "can be made or used and can produce effective results". In the Board's view, such practical applicability may typically be use in industry. However, the term industry should be construed broadly to include all agriculture, manufacture, forestry, fishery, livestock husbandry, transportation and communication, and some tertiary industries such as the beauty treatment industry. Since the present invention has utility in beauty salons, it must be regarded as having practical applicability and thus it falls within the definition of protectible subject matter.