China
What Kind of Damage Awards Can You Get in China?
16 June 2022Is it worth filing for a patent in China? What kind of damage awards can you get? Pharma companies care more about injunction than damage awards, since it’s quite unlikely that any damage award can compensate for the large amounts of money that may be lost for patent infringement. Chinese courts often issue injunctions in […]
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China Releases Draft Implementation Guidelines for the Drug Administration Law
2 June 2022The latest draft implementation guidelines for China’s Drug Administration Law (“Guidelines”) are out and open for comment. Previously, the new implementation measures for early dispute resolution mechanisms for drug patents (“Patent Linkage Measures”) came into effect on July 4, 2021. The Guidelines indicate that the final approval of generic chemical drug applications for marketing approval […]
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Patent Eligibility for Software in China
4 April 2022Technology has progressed significantly since the early days of patent law, when US lawmakers in 1952 could only envision patentable subject matter into categories like “process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” The recent explosion of new types of innovations that don’t fall neatly into these categories has resulted in a game of catch-up, where […]
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China Joins Two WIPO Treaties, the Hague System and the Marrakesh Treaty
11 February 2022It has been two challenging years, yet there are many reasons to still have hope. We wish you a blessed Lunar New Year as we welcome the year of the Tiger. We wanted to highlight a few new developments in China. China has joined the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs, submitting […]
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CHINA DIVISIONAL PATENT STRATEGY: Recent Judgment Narrows What Constitutes “Different Inventions” for Divisionals
6 December 2021In China, patents applicants take advantage of a commonly-used divisional filing strategy to achieve a fine-tuned balance between protection scope and protection period (if used properly). Patent applicants (especially foreign applicants) widely welcome this well-established strategy, and up until now, have used it with much success. In fact, we recommend this strategy and have even […]
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CHINA: How Prohibiting "Illegal" Inventions Runs into Food Safety Law
22 October 2021Chinese Patent Law has an interesting provision that specifically prohibits patent protection on “illegal” or “immoral” inventions. What does this mean, exactly? According to Article 5.1 of the Chinese Patent Law, “no patent shall be granted for an invention that contravenes any law or social moral or that is detrimental to public interests.” On its […]
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China Patent Office (CNIPA) Releases More Details About Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) in the Draft Examination Guidelines
19 October 2021The new 4th Amendment of the Chinese Patent Law came into effect on June 1, 2021. Right before that date, the Chinese Patent Office (“CNIPA”) released some “Interim Measures” to give us a taste of what was to come, though they have yet to released the actual Implementation Rules. Two months later, CNIPA finally released […]
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Do Invention and UM Patents Filed on the Same Day Rise and Fall Together?
19 August 2021Snippets of Court Cases, Provisions, and Key Observations about China’s IP Landscape Seminal Cases by the SPC Recently, the Intellectual Property Division of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) issued a list of seminal (精品) cases. Although China is not a case law country, such seminal cases issued by the SPC have high guiding impact for […]
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What is the difference between an Invention Patent and a Utility Model Patent?
13 August 2021There are two types of patent protection in China. Invention patents (similar to a US utility patent) have a term of 20 years from the date of filing and may be granted for both methods and products. Utility model patents (similar to a petty patent) may be granted in China for technical solutions that relate […]
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CHINA: New Patent Examination Guidelines Now Available for Public Comment
4 August 2021Two months after the new Chinese Patent law came into effect, the CNIPA has released a new set of Patent Examination Guidelines (proposed version) for public comments on Aug 3, 2021. Here are the explanation of the amendments (Chinese only). Here is the full set of proposed amendments (Chinese only). Briefly, the new amendment focuses […]
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