Zhuanli shenqing quan and shenqing zhuanli de quanli are two different legal terms in the Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China, but they are hard to be distinguished from each other in Chinese. The latter is the single right to file a patent application, whereas the former includes multiple rights. After examining authoritative English translations of the Patent Law and English abstracts of relevant journal articles, it is found that the translation of zhuanli shenqing quan could be problematic and difficult to be distinguished from translation of shenqing zhuanli de quanli. Therefore, it is recommended to translate shenqing zhuanli de quanli as “the right to apply for a patent” and zhuanli shenqing quan as “rights in patent application” so as to better convey their legal implications.