Beijing IP Court made a final ruling that the design patent No. 201730062307.9 shown in the following drawings is invalid for lack of clarity.

Specifically, part A, if visible from left view, should not be visible in the front view. Part A in the rear view shows the groove and other parts that should not be visible. Likewise, part B, if visible from right view, should not be visible in the front view. The position of part B in the rear view is also wrong. Part C, if visible in the right view, should not be visible in the rear view.

This is a typical example of the design practice in China. Foreign applicants and practitioners should take note. You can probably get a rough idea of what the design looks like from the drawings but that's not good enough. The drawings should be correct in a mechanical engineer's eyes. That's the design practice in China. In this particular case, it is not clear how many grooves the water bottle has.

The summary of this decision was published in Beijing IP Court's Wechat public account on May 14, 2020.