Usually, when a patent is subject to property preservation, the Patent Office will take the action of suspending the patent related procedures. The scope of suspension includes:

(1)Suspending the procedures of preliminary examination, substantive examination, re-examination, grant of patent right and invalidation of patent right;

(2)Suspending such procedures as withdrawal of patent application, waiver of patent right, termination of patent right without paying annual fee, etc;

(3)Suspending the formalities of withdrawing patent application, abandoning patent right, changing the name of applicant (or patentee), transferring patent application right (or patent right), patent pledge registration, etc.  

It can be seen that when the patent is executed for property preservation, it will have an impact on the patent invalidation procedure, that is, directly lead to the suspension of the patent invalidation procedure.  

The Patent Examination Guide also provides for the suspension period of the invalidation procedure:  

Where the people's court requests the Patent Office to assist in the execution of property preservation and thus executes the suspension procedure, the relevant procedures shall be suspended in accordance with the time limit for property preservation specified in the written civil order and the notice for assistance in execution. Where the people's court requests the continuation of the property preservation measures, it shall, before the expiration of the time limit for suspension, serve on the Patent Office the notice of assistance in execution for the continuation of the preservation. The period of suspension shall be renewed if it meets the requirements of Section 7.3.2.1 of this chapter upon examination.

It can be seen from the above provisions that the Patent Office should fully cooperate with the measures taken by the people's court to execute the suspension procedure.

The original purpose of this provision is to prevent the patentee from maliciously disposing of his patent right to damage the rights of the party concerned in the property preservation case. However, in most of the current cases, the reason for the request for invalidation is related to patent infringement, and the request for invalidation is one of the legitimate countermeasures.If the invalidation procedure is suspended, it is likely to affect the rights of the petitioner, so that the invalidation procedure does not have any substantive effect after it is started. It not only deprives the invalidation petitioner of a right to exercise and means of counterattack against the patentee, but also consumes the time cost and economic cost of the invalidation petitioner without cause.  

Therefore, based on the above reasons, the author holds that the interests of the invalidation petitioner should be considered when determining whether the invalidation procedure should be suspended by the patent property preservation.The invalidation petitioner who are not the parties to property preservation and the interested parties who are not the parties to property preservation and have patent infringement disputes with the patentee are excluded from the scope of suspension, so that the invalidation petitioners who are not related to the property preservation and malicious treatment of the patentee can exercise their rights through a proper way without being affected, thus achieving procedural fairness and justice.