(1) Patent applications involving national defense interests that need to be kept confidential shall be examined by the National Defense Patent Office. If no reason for rejection is found after examination, the Patent Office shall make a decision to grant the national defense patent right according to the examination opinions of the National Defense Patent Office, entrust the National Defense Patent Office to issue a national defense patent certificate, and announce the patent number, application date and authorization announcement date of the national defense patent in the patent bulletin.

If the National Defense Patent Reexamination Board makes a decision to declare a national defense patent invalid, the Patent Office shall publish the patent number, the date of authorization announcement, the number of invalidation decision and the date of invalidation decision in the patent bulletin.

(2) Applications for patents for inventions or utility models involving vital interests other than national security or national defense interests that need to be kept confidential shall be examined and managed by the Patent Office in accordance with the following procedures.

The examiner shall mark the patent application documents that need to be kept confidential and keep them confidential before making a decision on decryption. The preliminary examination and substantive examination of the confidential patent application shall be conducted by the examiner designated by the Patent Office.

For an application for a patent for invention, the preliminary examination and substantive examination shall be conducted on the same basis as the general application for a patent for invention. The confidential patent application that has passed the preliminary examination will not be published, and if the request for substantive examination meets the requirements, it will directly enter the substantive examination procedure. If no reason for rejection is found after substantive examination, a decision shall be made to grant the patent right for confidential inventions, and a notice of granting the patent right for inventions and a notice of going through the registration formalities shall be issued.

The preliminary examination of an application for a patent for utility model shall be conducted on the same basis as an application for a patent for common utility model. If no reason for rejection is found after preliminary examination, a decision shall be made to grant the patent right of confidential utility model, and a notice of granting the patent right of utility model and a notice of handling the registration formalities shall be issued.

The authorization announcement of confidential patent application only publishes the patent number, application date and authorization announcement date.