How to Verify a Chinese Patent Agency and Its Attorneys: A Due-Diligence Checklist for Foreign Applicants

Short answer: if you have no habitual residence or place of business in China, you cannot file a Chinese patent application yourself. Article 18 of the PRC Patent Law requires you to appoint a licensed Chinese patent agency, which turns the selection of that agency into a legal decision rather than a commercial one. Both the agency’s practising licence and the individual attorney’s practice filing are published by the CNIPA in a register that is free, public and needs no registration — the only obstacle is that the interface is in Chinese. The check takes about ten minutes and comes down to three questions: is the agency’s status “Normal”, is the attorney’s practice filing registered with that same agency, and do the first five digits of the filing number match the agency code?

This guide is written for foreign applicants, in-house counsel and overseas associates who need to verify a Chinese agency before sending a technical disclosure across a border. Every screen referred to below is a public CNIPA page; the screenshots use the published record of one real agency as a worked example.

1. The rule you cannot opt out of

Article 18 of the PRC Patent Law (2020 amendment) provides that a foreigner, foreign enterprise or other foreign organisation without habitual residence or place of business in China shall, when filing a patent application or handling other patent business in China, appoint a patent agency established in accordance with law to act on its behalf. There is no small-value exception and no pro se route.

The same article carries a provision that matters more to most applicants than the procedural one: the agency shall handle the patent application or other patent business in accordance with the principal’s instructions, and bears responsibility for keeping the contents of the invention-creation confidential, except where the application has already been published or announced.

Two consequences follow. First, the agency is your only lawful channel into the Chinese system, so its status is your status. Second, confidentiality is a statutory duty, not merely a contractual courtesy — but that duty attaches to the appointed agency, which is precisely why it matters whether the entity you are talking to is in fact the appointed agency.

2. A middleman is not an agency

This distinction deserves its own section, because it is where foreign applicants lose the most.

The “China IP services company” you are corresponding with may not be a patent agency at all. It may be a consultancy or filing service that holds no Patent Agency Practising Licence and therefore cannot file with the CNIPA in its own name. Its business model is to take your case and sub-contract it to an agency that does hold a licence.

Sub-contracting is not unlawful. The problem is transparency. What you typically do not know is: which agency actually files; what its agency code is; which attorney signs; whether that attorney’s practice filing sits with that agency; who carries legal responsibility for a defective filing; and how much of your invoice is official fee, how much is agency fee and how much is intermediation.

So the first step is not opening a website. It is asking a question that cannot be answered vaguely:

3. Where to look: two registers, five data sets

The public register is split into two independent search pages, each answering a different question.

Register	Address	What it proves
Patent agency register 专利代理机构信息公示	ggfw.cnipa.gov.cn/poam/txnqueryAgencyOrg.do	Whether the firm holds a practising licence, and whether that licence is currently in force
Patent attorney register 专利代理师信息公示	ggfw.cnipa.gov.cn/poam/txnqueryAgent.do	Whether the individual may lawfully practise, and with which agency that practice is filed

Both pages sit alongside three blacklists worth a routine glance: the List of Agencies with Abnormal Operations (经营异常名录公示), the List of Serious Violations and Dishonesty (严重违法失信名单公示) and the Risk List (风险名单公示).

4. Reading the agency record, field by field

The agency page accepts two search conditions: by agency name or by agency code. Use the name first to locate the firm, then re-run the search by code — the reason is given immediately below.

The convenience and the weakness of a name search are the same thing: it is fuzzy. Names can be abbreviated, bracketed differently, duplicated, or differ by a single character. The agency code cannot. So switch the search condition to agency code and enter those five digits:

The result table has seven columns. This is the part most foreign readers cannot get past, so here is the mapping: the left column is the string you will actually see on screen.

Chinese on screen	Meaning	What you do with it
机构代码 Agency Code	Five digits; the agency’s unique practising identifier	The anchor for every later cross-check. It must match the code on the practising licence, the engagement letter and the invoice
机构名称 Agency Name	Full registered name, including the entity form in brackets	Must match the contracting party character for character. A short trading name on the contract, or a signatory different from the filing agency, is a red flag
机构状态 Status	Current validity of the practising licence	Read this column first. Only “正常” (Normal) is acceptable. Any other wording — cancelled, revoked, withdrawn — ends the discussion regardless of how it is explained
机构性质 Entity Type	Partnership (合伙制) or limited liability company (有限责任制)	Determines how liability is borne and drives the statutory minimum number of partners or shareholders. Should match the entity form in your contract
成立年限 Years since establishment	Years of existence (2 in the example)	History, not capability. A young firm is not incompetent; an old firm is not necessarily still licensed — that is the status column
专利代理师总数 Total patent attorneys	Number of registered attorneys (3 in the example)	An upper bound on capacity, not a roster — the individual handling your case must still be checked separately. A claim of “dozens of senior attorneys” against a register showing two or three needs explaining
信用等级 Credit rating	Credit evaluation by the regulator (A in the example)	A regulatory compliance signal. A good rating is a plus; it is not evidence of drafting quality or of an ability to pay damages

5. Reading the attorney record: two numbers that are not the same

A licensed agency is the floor, not the answer. The exposure usually sits one level down: the firm is licensed, but the person who drafts, responds and signs for you is filed somewhere else.

The attorney page accepts three search conditions — name, qualification certificate number and practice filing number. Running all three is not excessive; they answer three different questions.

The risk in a name search is obvious: duplicate names. There may be more than one attorney with the same characters, so the identity is only fixed once agency, technical field and years in practice all line up.

Now the two numbers. Foreign applicants almost always read them as one thing, and this is exactly where the useful signal sits.

Chinese on screen	What it is	What it alone proves
资格证号 Qualification Certificate No. 3434765	The certificate number issued after passing the national patent agent qualification examination; fixed for life	That the person passed the examination
执业备案号 Practice Filing No. 3440834765.5	The number generated when practice is filed with a specific agency; changes if the attorney moves	That the person may practise at that agency, in its name

The filing number is built from the other two identifiers, which makes it a checksum you can use without reading Chinese:

Turn that into two checks:

1. The first five digits should equal the agency code. 34408 — the same code returned in Figures 1 and 2. This is what establishes that the attorney’s practice is filed with the firm you are about to engage.
2. Digits 6 to 12 should equal the qualification certificate number. 3434765 — the same number returned by the certificate search in Figure 5, which establishes that the filing number points to the holder of that certificate.

Only when both hold does the person–firm–certificate triangle close. A certificate shows the examination was passed. A filing number carrying your agency’s code shows the person can actually act for you.

The remaining four columns should not be skipped:

Chinese on screen	How to read it
执业年限 Years in practice	8 in the example. Experience, not proof of quality — but an attorney with eight clean years behind a filing is a safer bet than one filed last month
专业 Technical field	Transportation engineering in the example. This is a question of choosing a person, not a firm: a mechanical case given to a telecommunications specialist is capped in quality from the first draft
人员状态 Personnel status	Only “正常” (Normal) is acceptable. Anything else — a cancelled filing, a suspension — requires a written explanation before you proceed
信用等级 Credit rating	The same evaluation system as for agencies, applied to the individual’s compliance record

6. Eight checks that complete the verification

The value of this sequence is that it converts “whom should I trust” into eight questions with unique answers. Print it, fill it in each time, and keep it with the screenshots.

#	Action	Pass condition
1	Search the agency by name	A record exists and the name matches the intended contracting party character for character
2	Re-run the search by agency code	Five-digit code matches the licence, the contract and the invoice
3	Read the status column	“正常” (Normal)
4	Search the attorney who will sign, by name	A record exists and personnel status is “正常”
5	Compare the attorney’s filed agency	Filed agency = the agency you are engaging
6	Check the first five digits of the filing number	Equal the agency code
7	Check digits 6–12 of the filing number	Equal the qualification certificate number
8	Scan the three blacklists	The agency appears on none of the abnormal operations, serious violation or risk lists

7. Six misjudgements worth naming

A business licence is not a patent agency licence

A business registration is a market-entry record; patent agency is a licensed activity. A scope of business listing “patent agency services” does not mean a Patent Agency Practising Licence has been granted. Two systems, two identifiers. The same holds for an “IP services company” registered outside mainland China — in Hong Kong, Singapore or the United States — where the place of incorporation has no bearing whatsoever on CNIPA licensing.

“Intellectual property” in the name means nothing in particular

Many entities with 知识产权代理 or 知识产权服务 in their name handle trademarks only. Trademark agency and patent agency fall under separate licensing and filing regimes. The sole test is whether the entity appears in the patent agency register.

A qualification certificate is not a licence to practise

Passing the examination is a precondition, not a practice right. An attorney must practise at an agency and have a practice filing before acting in that capacity. Anyone who produces a certificate but has no filing in the register cannot lawfully act for you.

Filed at agency A, working at agency B

The least visible pattern. Agency B is licensed and legitimate, but the attorney signing your case is filed at agency A. Formally compliant, substantively irregular — the practice is known in the industry as 挂靠 (affiliation lending). The check that exposes it is the one in section 5: do the first five digits of the filing number equal the agency code?

A polished website is not evidence

Websites, brochures, LinkedIn pages and conference badges are self-descriptions, and self-descriptions can be made to look better than the underlying facts. The CNIPA register is the only authoritative source; everything else is a lead.

Years of establishment is not current status

“Founded 2012” is history; “status Normal” is the present. A firm that has existed for fifteen years may have had its licence revoked, while the years-of-establishment figure keeps displaying. Read status first, always.

8. Three questions to send before you sign

Verification does not require confrontation, only questions that cannot be answered in generalities. These three can be forwarded as they stand; validate each answer against the register.

1	“Please provide your CNIPA patent agency code (five digits) and the full registered name of your agency as shown on the Patent Agency Practising Licence.”
2	“Please provide the qualification certificate number and the practice filing number of the patent attorney who will sign my case, and confirm that his or her practice filing is registered with your agency.”
3	“Please confirm that the contracting party, the invoicing entity and the agency filing with the CNIPA are one and the same entity.”

Three clear answers that survive a check against the register complete the exercise. Any question side-stepped is worth asking once more.

9. Frequently asked questions

Can I run these searches from outside China, and do I need an account?
Yes, and no. Both registers are open to the public without an account, a Chinese mobile number or real-name verification. They are reachable from overseas networks.

The interface is Chinese only. How do I read it?
Browser translation will get you most of the way, with one exception: read the status columns (机构状态, 人员状态) in the original characters. Machine translation tends to flatten “正常” and other states into similar English words — normal, active, valid — which is precisely where a wrong conclusion is costly. Compare against the tables in sections 4 and 5.

Am I required to appoint a Chinese agency?
Under Article 18 of the Patent Law, a foreign applicant without habitual residence or place of business in China must appoint a patent agency established in accordance with law. Your own patent attorney at home can help prepare and review the application, but the formal proceedings before the CNIPA must be conducted through a licensed Chinese agency.

Can my existing law firm abroad file directly with the CNIPA?
Not unless it has established a qualifying entity in China holding a practising licence. The usual arrangement is a contract with your home firm, which then sub-contracts to a licensed Chinese agency. In that case, establish which Chinese agency actually files and what its code is — that determines where responsibility sits if something goes wrong.

What protects my technical disclosure?
Three layers. Statutorily, Article 18 imposes on the agency a duty of confidentiality over the contents of the invention-creation, except once the application is published or announced. At the regulatory level, breaches affect the agency’s credit record and may attract administrative penalties. Contractually, you can sign a separate non-disclosure agreement and specify the scope of confidential information and the consequences of breach in the engagement letter. Keep all three.

Is one check enough?
No. Agency status, personnel status and credit ratings are live data. Re-check at three points: before signing, before filing, and annually for a long-running relationship. The departure of the attorney who handles your case changes who is actually responsible for it.

Can a screenshot serve as evidence, and how should it be taken?
Yes, and it should be. A usable screenshot captures the full URL, the date and time, the search conditions (the dropdown selection and the value entered) and the complete result row. Do not crop to the result line alone — a screenshot divorced from its date and search parameters loses most of its evidentiary value.

10. If the check fails

Where the status is abnormal, the filing does not match, or the agency code is refused, work through three steps in order.

1. Clarify internally first. Most cases are a misunderstanding — typically a sub-contracting intermediary whose licensed partner was never disclosed. A written explanation usually resolves it.
2. Change the counterparty. If the entity is an intermediary, ask to contract directly with the licensed agency, or at minimum require disclosure of the filing agency and the named attorney in the contract.
3. Report it. Unlicensed practice, false claims of licensure and affiliation lending can be reported to the CNIPA or to the intellectual property administration department of the province concerned. Confirm the current complaint channels and contact details on the CNIPA official website — hotline numbers in this area have been consolidated in recent years, and numbers quoted in third-party articles are frequently out of date.

Conclusion

For a domestic applicant this check is a way to avoid wasted money. For a foreign applicant it means something more: it is the one factual judgement you can complete yourself, in a jurisdiction where almost everything else reaches you second-hand.

You do not need to understand the whole Chinese patent system, and you do not need to take anyone’s word for their own credentials. You need three answers: is the agency status “Normal”, is the attorney filed with that agency, and do the first five digits of the filing number match the agency code.

Each has a unique answer, each can be screenshotted, and each can be attached to the engagement letter as a condition. Ten minutes buys protection against the one defect that can be raised against an otherwise sound patent — in examination, in invalidation, or in enforcement — long after the drafting is done.

One further point, offered without irony: an agency that publishes its code and its attorneys’ filing numbers on its own website, and invites you to check them, is usually the agency that survives the check. Being checkable is part of being qualified.

Related reading

• Filing a Patent in China as a Foreign Applicant: The Complete Procedure Guide — the procedural counterpart to this article: the three routes into China, the deadlines that actually bite, and what the CNIPA charges.
• China’s Patent and Trademark Agency Model Contracts: Key Clauses for Applicants — once the agency survives the check, this is what the engagement letter should say, especially on named handlers and confidentiality.
• China’s Patent Agent Qualification Exam: FAQs for Applicants — where the qualification certificate number in Figure 5 comes from, and how hard it is to obtain.
• Official Fees for Patents in China: A Practical Overview — useful when reconciling an invoice against the portion that should be official fee.

ZhiHaiYiDa (agency code 34408) publishes its register entry and its attorneys’ filing numbers precisely so that they can be checked. If you would like us to confirm our own record before you engage, or to walk through the same sequence on a different counterparty, write to patent@zhihaiyida.com.