Last Friday (10/3), our Vice President Jennifer Che met with Grace S N Lau of the Institute for Translational Research of HKSTP and the HKSTP community to discuss the fundamentals of IP and how “common” early-stage business/R&D activities can hurt your IP.
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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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The Secret Prior Art Trap: A Case Study on Conflicting Applications in China
13 November 2025In patent prosecution, the concept of a "conflicting application" or “secret prior art” plays a critical role in determining the patentability of an invention. This article explores the framework for assessing conflicting applications under Chinese patent law, with a comparative perspective on the approaches adopted in the United States. Case Background: The Image Encoding Dispute […]
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FOLLOW UP: Amendments to the China Patent Examination Guidelines in 2022 – Part 1: New rules for designs in view of China signing onto the Hague Agreement
4 January 2023Since the publication of our earlier article about China signing onto the Hague Agreement, some of our Hong Kong clients have expressed interest in taking advantage of the Hague international design application system, i.e., filing a Hague international design application with the CNIPA (Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration) as a receiving office (RO). Up until […]
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IP Strategies for the Newly Released Implementation Regulations of the 4th Amendment of the Chinese Patent Law: Part 1: Delayed Examination
25 January 2024December 2023 appears to have been an exceptionally busy and fruitful month in the China patent space. Following the State Council’s approval of the long-awaited Patent Law Implementation Regulations (“Regulations”, similar to the CFR in the US) in November, the CNIPA finally made public the full text of the Regulations just before the arrival of […]
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