Q: Does a third party have any way to stop the patenting of an application?

A: First, there is no opposition procedure during patenting procedure in the patent system of china. Rule 48 of the Implementing Regulations of the Chinese Patent Law only stipulates that any person may, from the date of publication of an application for a patent for invention till the date of announcing the grant of the patent right, submit to the SIPO his observations, with reasons there for, on the application which is not in conformity with the provisions of the Patent Law. Such third party observations are surely possible to affect the examiner to some extent, but there is no restricting rule stipulating how an examiner shall treat Third Party Observations.

Of course, for a patent after the patenting procedure, a third party may request the Patent Re-examination Board (PRB) to declare the patent invalid partially or wholly, and the decision made by the PRB may be appealed to the First Intermediate Court of Beijing and further to Beijing High Court. But a third party may not directly request the court, with the PRB bypassed, to declare a patent invalid partially or wholly, even if in an infringement litigation.