Court Cases
China Top 10 Cases of 2020 – CNIPA Upholds Second Medical Use Patent from University of Bordeaux
24 May 2021The development of China’s approach to patents, especially those in the pharmaceutical and biotech space, has been fascinating to watch. Those of us who have practiced in the area for a long time have been frustrated by the Chinese patent office’s overly strict rules regarding patentability (e.g., high data support standard and refusal to consider […]
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Narrow Claim Scope of a Chinese Utility Model Patent Fuels Design-Arounds by Failing to Curb Competing Products:
28 October 2020Learning from a 2019 China’s Top 50 Representative IP Case The number of patent applications in China is now the highest in the world, with more than half the applications filed as utility model applications (UMs). For example, there were more than 2 million UMs filed in 2018 alone (for the difference between a utility […]
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How Far Can an Employer Reach to Own Employee-made “Service Inventions”?
30 July 20202019 China’s Top 50 Representative IP Cases Shenzhen Weibang Technology Co. Ltd v. Li Jianyi & Shenzhen Yuancheng Intelligence Equipment Co. Ltd (2019最高法民申6342号) Each year in China there are hundreds of disputes over patent ownership. A significant part of them are related to “Service Inventions”, which are defined in Article 6 of the Chinese Patent […]
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China Top 50 Case of 2019: How a Functional Feature is Construed Greatly Impacts Protection Scope - Shimano KK v. SENSAH
20 July 2020Every year in the spring The Supreme People’s Court of PRC announces its “Top 10 Intellectual Property (IP) cases” and “50 typical IP cases in Chinese courts” of the year. Although not having precedential weight, these cases serve as a reference and guide people's courts at all levels regarding their intellectual property trials. It’s always […]
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Polymorph Patents in China: What is the Standard for Inventiveness for New Crystal Forms?
14 July 2020This case is focused on polymorphs, namely what are the standards for novelty and inventiveness when it comes to new crystal forms of a known drug? A recent Supreme People’s Court decision in China is illustrative of the way Chinese courts are thinking about polymorph patents in China. Grünenthal is a German pharmaceutical company and […]
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Stealing Trade Secrets: How the Chinese Court Criminally Sentences Employees that Steal Trade Secrets - 2019 China’s Top 50 Representative IP Cases
11 June 2020The theft of trade secrets has always been a deep concern of foreign companies thinking of doing business in China, whether it be sharing protocols with a manufacturing partner, providing technology details to a potential investor, or sharing results from an R&D collaboration. How can businesses ensure that employees do not steal secrets and share […]
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2019 CHINA TOP 10 IP CASE: VALEO V. LUCAS, FUKE, & CHEN
8 June 2020Every year in the spring The Supreme People’s Court of PRC announces its “Top 10 Intellectual Property (IP) cases” and “50 typical IP cases in Chinese courts” of the year. Although not having precedential weight, these cases serve as a reference and guide people's courts at all levels regarding their intellectual property trials. It’s always […]
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The Latest on Post-Filing Data in China’s Patent Law
29 April 2020Post-filing data can sometimes be the crucial difference between a patent allowance and a final rejection. The reasons are endless why important data may not have been included in the original patent application as filed. Time and budget may have been insufficient to generate data over the full scope of the claims at the time […]
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Markush claims in China - what can be arbitrarily deleted during invalidation?
4 December 2018Since 2010, the China 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 […]
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No % homology? How to craft allowable claim scope around sequences to comply with China’s strict written description requirements
23 November 2018Since 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 […]
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