China

Back at the end of April, the Committee of the Science and Technology Innovation Board at the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced that the meeting for reviewing the initial public offering (IPO) application of MEMSensing, a Chinese MEMS microphone sensor supplier, was cancelled due to an "emergence of significant matters." The "significant matters" they were referring to were 16 patent disputes brought by Goertek seeking both permanent injunctions and damages totalling over RMB 100 million ($14.5 million). Goertek and MEMSensing are competitors producing MEMS microphones, a key component in the smart speakers of Google, Amazon, Apple, Alibaba, and Xiaomi.

To strengthen copyright protection, and to implement relevant provisions of the Economic and Trade Agreement between the US and China, on August 5 2020, the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China (the SPC) issued a draft Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Copyright and Copyright related Rights (关于加强著作权和与著作权有关的权利保护的意见) for public consultation.

Quan Kang of Deqi details the examination standards for subject matter, inventiveness and sufficient disclosure in the arena of AI-related inventions and makes some suggestions for drafting claims and specifications

The e-commerce market in China is one of the fastest growing in the world. To improve regulation over the flourishing market and maintain the market order, China promulgated the E-Commerce Law which became effective on January 1 2019. Notably, the E-Commerce Law addresses intellectual property protection in e-commerce settings. To reflect further developments regarding e-commerce in China, and to implement intellectual property protection more efficiently, on June 10 2020, the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC) released Draft Guiding Opinion on the Adjudication of Intellectual Property Disputes Involving E-commerce Platforms 《关于审理涉电子商务平台知识产权纠纷案件的指导意见》 (Guiding Opinion) for public consultation.

On April 21 2020, Beijing High Court issued the guiding opinions on the determination of damages in cases of infringement of intellectual property rights and unfair competition as well as the judging standards for statutory compensation ("关于侵害知识产权及不正当竞争案件确定损害赔偿的指导意见及法定赔偿的裁判标准") (opinions).

On January 15 2020, US President Donald Trump and Chinese vice-premier He Liu signed a trade agreement which President Trump has described as "the biggest deal anybody has ever seen." The deal promises to be the first phase of a larger new trade agreement between the US and China, announcing a significant de-escalation in the trade war between the two giants that has dragged along for more than one year. Of particular interest to those in the pharmaceutical industry will be Sections C and D of the first chapter of the trade agreement, which outline China's commitments to improve protection and enforcement of pharmaceutical-related patent rights, and in particular to creating an effective mechanism for early resolution of patent disputes between generic drug companies and pharmaceutical innovators, or a Chinese drug patent linkage system, as many may like to put it.