On December 21, 2023, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) issued the final version of the revised Implementing Rules for the Patent Law and the Guidelines for Patent Examination, which will become effective on January 20, 2024. These Regulations complete legislative efforts on changes to the Chinese patent system introduced by the 4th amendment…

On 4th December 2023, the Intermediate People’s Court of Chongqing Municipality in China handed down its FRAND determination in the global 5G patent licensing dispute between patent owner Nokia and the Chinese implementer Oppo. The Finnish multinational has already confirmed that it will appeal the decision, which marks the first time a court has issued…

A judicial and academic debate on standard essential patents (SEPs) in China has recently arisen. The issuance of anti-suit injunctions (ASIs) by Chinese courts in a relatively short period of time (between 2019 and 2020) and the ensuing TRIPS/WTO dispute between the EU and China over the TRIPS compatibility of such ASIs, exemplify such debate….

Historically, China promulgated its first patent law in the 1980s, the result of its reopening and affiliation to the WIPO, which led to the country’s joining important multilateral agreements, such as the Paris Union Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1984) and the TRIPS Agreement (2001). This patent law entered into force in 1985…

This short post reports on one of the Panel Sessions at this year’s AIPPI Congress which took place virtually for the second year in a row. The tenth panel session of the AIPPI Online World Congress 2021 addressed global FRAND determinations by national courts and out-of-jurisdiction judgments in the form of anti-suit and anti-anti-suit injunctions….

On 1 June 2021, the Amended Patent Law took effect and introduced patent term extension (“PTE“) and patent linkage (“PL“), which are closely related to the pharmaceutical industry. The legislative amendment reflects China’s determination to promote the research and development of innovative drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. The China National Intellectual Property Administration (“CNIPA“), the…

A recent dispute over standard essential patent (SEP) between Inter Digital, Inc. and its affiliates (collectively “IDC“) and Xiaomi Communication Technology Co., Ltd. and its affiliates (collectively “Xiaomi“) before the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court (“WIPC China“) has drawn wide public attention.  The concerned technologies involve SEPs related to 3G and 4G standards. It is a…

The IP Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) recently issued a decision in Dunjun v. Tengda ((2019) SPC IP Civil No. 147), holding that the manufacturer’s making and selling of routers directly infringed a telecommunication method-of-use patent even though the manufacturer itself did not perform one single step of the patented method. This article…

On 5 December 2019, the IP Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) handed down two decisions in which – in a first for China, the SPC heard and decided on both the patent validity and infringement disputes in one consolidated proceeding.  Background The two actions arose out of a patent infringement dispute between the…

Declaratory-judgment actions of non-infringement are common in patent litigation because it allows the alleged infringer to proactively bring suit to resolve the situation and eliminate the cloud of uncertainty looming overhead. Under Chinese law, to bring a claim for declaratory judgment in a patent dispute, the claimant must establish that: (1) the patentee sends a…