Courts

China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Hands Down First Patent Linkage Appeal Decision

21 September 2022

China has been implementing a plethora of new laws and measures that are particularly favorable to drug companies, such as patent term extension and patent linkage. Details of the new implementation measures for patent linkage (technically “early dispute resolution mechanisms for drug patents”) came into effect on July 4, 2021. At around the same time, […]

SPC Upholds $2M RMB Award in China’s First Patent Case on a Biological Deposit

4 July 2022

On 28 Feb 2022, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued its annual “Judgment Digests”, which includes a list of “48 typical cases” highlighting representative SPC decisions in 2021. The Judgment Digests help us understand more about the SPC’s judicial ideology, trial concepts, and adjudication methods in dealing with difficult and sophisticated legal issues as well […]

What Kind of Damage Awards Can You Get in China?

16 June 2022

Is 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 […]

Do Invention and UM Patents Filed on the Same Day Rise and Fall Together?

19 August 2021

Snippets 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 […]

2020 China Top 10 IP Cases: Winners’ Sun is truly a Winner: A Simple Selfie-Stick Utility Model Patent Crushes Infringers in China

2 August 2021

Each year The Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court releases a list of top 10 technical intellectual property rights court case decisions. The 2020 list came out a few months ago, and we have been highlighting some of these cases. Today, we will cover a utility model patent infringement case. As one of […]

How will Civil Cases Work under the Patent Linkage Provision in the New Chinese Patent Law?

20 November 2020

The Supreme People’s Court has just issued draft regulations for comment regarding how new Article 76 will work in conjunction with civil procedure law. The period to submit comments ends December 14, 2020, and the final version will come into force June 1, 2021, together with the new Chinese Patent Law. The Backdrop: New Chinese […]

Polymorph Patents in China: What is the Standard for Inventiveness for New Crystal Forms?

14 July 2020

This 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 […]

Stealing Trade Secrets: How the Chinese Court Criminally Sentences Employees that Steal Trade Secrets - 2019 China’s Top 50 Representative IP Cases

11 June 2020

The 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 […]

Finally a unified “Court of Appeal” for technology IP in China

22 January 2019

On October 26, 2018, China’s Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) received approval to establish a specialized intellectual property court within the SPC to handle appeal cases involving technology-related IP for both civil (e.g., patent infringement) and administrative (e.g., patent invalidity) judgments. Technology-related IP includes invention patents, utility models, new plant species, IC design, trade secret, software, […]

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