Court Cases

Is “Comparable” the New “Unexpected”? China’s SPC Relaxes Inventive Step Standard for Breakthrough Therapeutics

2026年7月14日

How the Supreme People's Court Established a New Benchmark for Unexpected Technical Effects in a Landmark Diabetic Nephropathy Case Proving inventive step for pharmaceutical compounds, especially a second medical use, remains one of the most challenging aspects of patent prosecution in China. When the prior art discloses a compound's general therapeutic properties, how can an […]

No More Hindsight Bias: China’s Supreme People's Court Reins in Patent Inventiveness Assessments

2026年6月25日

For foreign applicants navigating patent litigation or invalidation in China, a common frustration is hindsight bias. Too often, CNIPA or lower courts strip down a patent into isolated technical features, find those features across disparate prior art references, and declare the invention to be "obvious". To counter such hindsight reasoning, the core criterion has always […]

Beijing Supreme People’s Court Upholds Novo Nordisk Semaglutide Patent in China based on Post-Filing Data

2026年1月23日

On December 31, 2025, The Supreme People's Court upheld the Beijing IP Court's decision, meaning that the semaglutide patent remains valid and will expire on March 20, 2026. Novo Nordisk announced this positive news via a press release on the day the case was decided. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has also confirmed this decision […]

From Faces to Football Fields: How Applying AI Models to Different Application Fields Can Prove Inventive in China

2025年10月21日

As AI models become versatile and adaptable across multiple contexts and industries, questions about inventive step sit at the heart of patent examination in China. The 2023 Patent Examination Guidelines (hereinafter referred to as 'the Guidelines') included several sessions dedicated to explaining how inventive step should be examined for AI-related inventions, featuring examples related to […]

How a Secondhand Ground Brush Wiped Away a Chinese Patent

2024年12月4日

A Chinese robot vacuum company digs up “hidden evidence” to successfully invalidate a patent owned by its biggest competitor. Highlights Background With the growth of online shopping, it is easier than ever to provide evidence of a sale when the product is still being sold on the market. But what if the product is no […]

Beijing IP Court Reverses CNIPA Decision and Upholds Ozempic® semaglutide patent in China as VALID based on Novo Nordisk’s Post Filing Data

2024年6月27日

Recently, all eyes have been on China as the fundamental patent covering semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic® and Wegovy®, will expire on March 20, 2026. It goes without saying that generics are ramping up bigtime in China (and also around the world), preparing to manufacture and sell this blockbuster drug to one of the […]

Twice the Trouble: Unraveling a Single Case of Dual Patent and Trademark Infringement

2024年1月9日

Can a rights holder sue the same infringer separately based on one single infringing act that infringes both trademark and patent rights? An interesting case this year from China’s Supreme People’s Court that addresses this specific issue ((2023)最高法知民终235号). Beijing Run De Hong Tu Technology Development Co., Ltd. (“Run De Hong Tu”) sued an individual named […]

Do Promotional Marketing Materials Constitute an “Offer for Sale” under Chinese Patent Law? Bayer IP GmbH v. Nanjing Hang Seng Pharmaceutical

2023年12月12日

Bayer's blockbuster drug Rivaroxaban has seen its share of patent litigations in China, several of which are big enough to be listed as Top 10 IP cases or 50 Representative IP cases. We summarized an invalidation case back in 2020 where all of Bayer’s claims directed towards the compound were upheld. Recently, another Rivaroxaban case […]

First ever Invalidation decision on an RNAi Invention patent in China

2023年12月4日

Decision on Examination of Request for Invalidation (No. 58530) In one of China’s Top 10 Patent Re-examination / Invalidation cases of 2022, an invalidation decision on a patent claiming Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) RNAi compositions (No. 58530) by the Patent Re-examination Board (the “Board”) sheds light on the standard for post filing data for rejections […]

Inventive Step for an Enantiomer over a Racemate: “L-ornidazole” Patent Invalidation Case

2023年11月27日

Each year, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issues its annual “Judgment Digests”, which includes a list of “48 typical cases” highlighting representative SPC decisions in the previous year. 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 […]

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