Since 2010, the Patent Re-examination Board (PRB) has published the top 10 patent invalidation cases of the year in April of each year. The selection criteria are high social concern, significant impact on the related industry, or involve difficult legal issues and important examination criteria. Below is one of the top 10 cases that discusses post filing data in China patents. Post Filing Data in China Can post-filing data showing unexpected technical effect be used to overcome inventive step if the specification contains no data but asserts the unexpected technical effect? In short, the answer is no, post-filing data cannot be used to overcome inventive step even if the idea…