Category Archives: empirical research

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Fellowship Available in Empirical Chinese Legal Studies

Berkeley Law is offering a fellowship in Chinese law and society.  Qualified applicants must have strong English language skills, be engaged in full-time law teaching or academic research, hold a primary appointment in Mainland China or Hong Kong, and hold a Ph.D. or S.J.D.   The position is also open to qualified individuals seeking to do empirical research on China’s intellectual property system for the next academic year (2020-2021).

The deadline for applying is November 15.  Interested applicants can write to Rstern@law.berkeley.edu for additional information, as well as to request any necessary extension of time to apply.

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A Statistical Snapshot of IP Prosecution, Admin. Enforcement and Monetization for 2018

As reported by zhichanli, CNIPA (the new agency formed from SIPO, SAIC and AQSIQ’s – IP authorities within the State Administration for Market Regulation) held a news conference on January 10 to report on statistical developments for 2018.  Here are some of the highlights:

Explosive Patent Growth Continues: 1,542,5000 invention patent applications were received by CNIPA, an increase from 2017 when it was 1,381,594.  432,000 patents were granted.  Of these 346,000 were domestic patent applications (2017: 326,970).  This leaves 86,000 foreign applications for 2018 (2017: 93,174).  There was therefore an increase of  5.8% to 19,030 in Chinese domestic patent grants in 2018, while foreign grants appear to have dropped by 7.7% to 7,174.  Any drop in a growing economy and IP system can be indicative of a problem of some type.

In total 93.3% of the domestic invention patents were service inventions, which is one indicator of possibly increasing quality.    Huawei remained the lead domestic filer with 3,369 invention patent applications.

CNIPA had a busy year examining 808,000 invention patents, 1,874,000 utility model patents (an increase from 1,687,593), and 667,000 design patents (an increase from 420,144).  The PRB heard 38,000 cases, resolved 28,000 and invalidated 5,000 patents.

Comparative data on 2017 is drawn from this report.

Trademarks Too, on Overdrive: CNIPA received 7,337,1000 trademark applications (2017: 5,748,00) and registered 5,000,7000.  Of these, 4,797,000 were domestic applicants.  In aggregate, there were 18,049,000 trademarks registered in China (2017: 14,920,000).  The good news is that the rapid growth in TM applications is slowing.  In 2017, there had been a year-on-year increase of 55.7% in trademark applications. In 2018, the increase was “only” 31.8%.

Patent Administrative Enforcement Continues to Be the Focus:  CNIPA reported 77,000 administrative patent cases, with an increase of 15.9% over the previous year.  35,000 cases involved patents disputes, of which 34,000 involved infringement (an increase of 22.8%).  43,000 cases involved counterfeit patents, with an increase of 10.9%.  There were also 31,000 cases involving illegal trademark activities.  This was an increase from approximately 30,000 the year before, which was itself a decrease of 5.1% from the prior year.  The apparent administrative enforcement realignment to patents thus continues, despite recent moves to improve the civil patent system, including the establishment of a specialized IP court at the SPC level, and the relatively high historic utilization of the administrative trademark system by foreigners.

Another odd development: 2018 marked the launch of the first administrative case involving infringement of a registered semiconductor layout design.

TM’s Remain Number 1 in Geographical Indications: There were 67 sui generis GI registrations approved, presumably under the former AQSIQ system, and 961 GI trademarks registered.   The trademark-based GI system thus appears to be occupying a dominant role.

Cross-border Trade In IP – is it Growing:  CNIPA also reported that “usage fees” for IP rights in cross border trade increased to 35 billion USD.  Comparative data to prior years and breakout data with individual countries would be especially useful, in order to do year-on-year comparisons and to also compare with US data on licensing revenue.  As reported in an earlier blog, according to official Chinese statistics for 2013, technology import contracts into China were reported at 41 billion dollars, with patent licensing contracts constituting 15.4% of that total.  I don’t have comprehensive data to make even preliminary comparisons at this time – and such data would be highly useful.

Summary: Altogether, the report shows a rapidly growing huge IP system, with active government involvement, encouragement and planning.  The report also suggests that there may be a diminishing foreign role, relative and/or absolute, in certain areas.  Finally, this report is the first hint of how the combined CNIPA may report on its joint activities in patents, trademarks, semiconductor layout designs, GI’s and administrative enforcement.  Additional data is usually released around IP Week of each year (April 26).

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SO MANY CHINA IP CONFERENCES, SO LITTLE TIME…

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Here’s a rundown of some past events, and some upcoming ones.  I will provide an update on some of the legal developments at a later date (I know I have been a bit remiss).

On October 4, 2018, I spoke about China at the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ program  on “Intellectual Property Enforcement at Trade Fairs.”   My observations: (a) China does not routinely great preliminary injunctions at trade fairs, despite heavy reliance on injunctive relief in final adjudication of IP infringements;  (b) The United States does have robust preliminary injunction/temporary restraining order trade fair remedies; (c) the use of sui generis administrative or quasi-administrative enforcement mechanisms for trade fair enforcement in China may be one reason that judicial remedies are not that common; (d) trade fairs do afford other opportunites – they are excellent evidence gathering opportunities, their use can help satisfy use requirements for a trademark, and they may constitute infringing conduct as an “offer for sale” under the patent law.  Please look through my  power point and tell me if you have any comments.

On November 2, 2018.  John Marshall Law School (JMLS) convened its 62nd annual IP conference I chaired a great breakout session on international developments, with Kira Alvarez, Peter Yu, Cynthia Ho, Tobias Hahn and Prof. Dennis Crouch.   The session discussed the state of global IP and China-specific IP negotiations in the Trump administration.   Kira Alvarez noted the success of the administration in negotiation trade secret commitments in the revised NAFTA.  The panel, along with the audience, also discussed the role of soft diplomacy, rather than trade disputes, to resolve IP-related trade conflicts.  Prof. Dennis Crouch attributed many of the changes in civil litigation globally to the work of former Chief Judge Rader “who was really using his gregarious nature to reach out and become close friends with the leading jurists around the world.”  This point was restated by many during the conference and thereafter.  The photo above is from the JMLS international IP panel with Kira to my right.

I also participated at the JMLS annual IP  conference in a plenary discussion on antitrust and IP developments, moderated by Prof. Hugh Hansen of Fordham with  Carlos Aboim, David Djavaherian, Suzanne Munck (FTC),  Prof. Ioannis Lianos, University College London and  Annsley Merelle Ward.   I looked at the evolution of Chinese judicial practice regarding SEPS, which are a remarkable set of steps in light of there being no substantive change in antitrust or patent law during this period, and likely reflect increased judicial experience as well as the impact of economic changes in China as an emerging licensor.  These developments were previously discussed in this blog.  I also discussed China’s historical reliance on civil law measures to deal with IP misuse, rather than remedies under the patent law or antitrust law, and how these compare with US practice.

On November 5, 2018, Dan Rosen (Rhodium Group) launched another path breaking paper “Missing Link – Corporate Governance in China’s State Sector” at the Asia Society of Northern California.  A copy can be found here.  The video of the launch can be found here.  The focus of my comments was on whether SOE’s can play a more active role in China’s innovation plans, and the awkward fit between SOE’s and global trading rules.  I believed that existing efforts to provide greater market accountability and transparency for SOE’s (and more broadly, China) have not achieved their intended outcomes despite  the extensive commitments negotiated with China at WTO accession.

I gave a talk at the IP Dealmakers Forum in NY on November 8, 2018 with several individuals involved in financing litigation, providing patent analytics, buying Chinese patents  – Roger Tu, Y. P. Jou,  Brian Yates, iPEL, and Bill Yuen.  Brian Yates’ company had just been the subject of a Chinese article regarding whether patent assertion entities will now be/should now be coming to China, that was posted by IPHouse.  I think many in the room shared my skepticism that China was now “ripe” for this type of activity, particularly for litigation by foreigners against Chinese.  There was however a general sense that the IP and litigation environment was improving.

In addition to these programs, here are some upcoming events;

November 12, 2018, I will be talking at NYU.  I have always greatly enjoyed the open discussions with Prof. Jerome Cohen (no relation), Ira Belkin and others, and I believe this upcoming event will be no different in my current role at UC Berkeley.

On November 13, 2018, I will be at Columbia University talking about “IP and the China Trade War: Long Overdue, a Pretext, or Both?”     I may be guided by the discussions around that topic at JMLS earlier in November, where many concurred that these actions on IP in China are both overdue and dwarfed by other concerns.

On December 2, 2018, I will be in Shenzhen. Peking University School of Transnational Law (“STL”) will be partnering with Berkeley to present an exciting program on “Legal and  Funding Issues for Successful Startups.”  Both the topics and speakers promise to make this an especially exciting launch event. Here’s the link to register.

On December 3, 2018, I will be at IPBC  Asia moderating a session on “China’s Mandate to Innovate” and its impact on IP commercialization. IPBC has constituted a great panel, including former SPC Chief IP Judge Kong Xiangjun, now Dean at Jiaotong University Law School, and Prof. Yang Guohua of Tsinghua Law School (former Chinese IP Attaché in the US, and DDG of MOfCOM), as well as Liren Chen, from Qualcomm, Eeva Hakoranta from Nokia and Roger Tu from Marconi.

On December 4, I will be at Tsinghua University speaking at the first annual Tsinghua/Berkeley conference on “Transnational IP Litigation: Opportunities and Challenges”.  A copy of the agenda (Chinese) is found here.   We will also have some great speakers for this launch event which focuses, non-exclusively, on US developments.  The speakers include several Tsinghua and Berkeley professors, and leading attorneys from practice in the US and China.  The program will cover a full range of issues including empirical data on litigation trends, venue, jury trials, Section 337 litigation, antitrust, the role of expert witnesses, and licensing strategies to mitigate risk.

I have some other events upcoming in Taiwan in December – but that will be another posting, along with some overdue updates on Chinese IP developments.

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A Data Download on Semiconductor Patent Litigation in China

Because of its strategic importance to both the United States and China, the IC sector is a useful example of how Chinese policies and plans may – or may not – be influencing the Chinese government in the protection of foreign-owned IP.

A useful starting point for evaluating the challenges in IC IP protection in China is the data collected from China’s court cases.  IP House has conducted a heretofore unpublished and useful study of all semiconductor-related patent disputes in its database, attached here (in Chinese).  The data shows that there have been 166 first instance civil patent infringements IP judgments with the word “chip” (芯片), and 86 second instance cases.    There have also been 142 first instance administrative decisions, typically involving validity matters, and ninety second instance decisions. 52.91% of the first instance cases involved invention patents, 10.31% involved utility model patents and 36.77% involved design patents.

Regarding civil cases, 39 were heard in Zhejiang, 35 in Guangdong, 27 in Beijing, 21 in Jiangsu and 11 in Shanghai.  Every other jurisdiction had fewer than five cases, and no cases were reported for Fujian Province.

The data suggest a comparatively low “success” rate for plaintiffs in semiconductor patent disputes.   Amongst the 183 reported judgments, only 51 cases were fully or partially successful — a 38.34% success rate.  This compared to an overall success rate of about 80% for litigants in patent cases in 2014 in China, as reported by Bian Renjun at Berkeley. Cases were not reversed to a significant degree on appeal; 60 out of 70 cases supported the original decision of the first instance court.  Amongst the “top 10 “ courts in terms of litigation volume, the success rate for semiconductor patent plaintiffs varied dramatically.   Guangdong had the highest success rate (60%), followed by Beijing (43.75%), Zhejiang (23.08%) and Jiangsu (19.05%).  76 of 77 successful litigants obtained an injunction to stop infringement; one litigant did not request an injunction.

Regarding administrative reviews, 117 out of 140 cases involved affirming the original administrative decision, an “affirmance rate” of 83.57 percent.  Eighty one out of ninety cases were affirmed on appeal.

The United States was the principal foreign civil litigant, with seven cases, followed by the British Virgin Islands and the Netherlands, each with two cases.  The United States was the principal first instance administrative plaintiff challenging SIPO’s decisions, with 30 cases, followed by Japan (5), Netherlands (3) and several countries with only one civil case (France, Germany, Cayman Islands, Korea,   Singapore and Israel).

I draw the following tentative conclusions from this data:

  1. Success rates for semiconductor cases vary dramatically by jurisdiction in China. My guess is that the Guangdong courts, which have the highest success rates, have greater expertise in both semiconductor patent litigation and patent litigation overall, which may make them more “expert” on these matters. Due to variations in success rates amongst jurisdictions, the semiconductor sector is a useful example of why China needs a national appellate IP court.
  2. No matter what major court one looks to, success rates for these cases are lower than the average for other types of patent litigation. This may suggest either a lack of familiarity with the technology or an unduly skeptical view of the courts regarding semiconductor patent assertions at this time. Considering that the vast majority of the cases do not involve foreigners, the low success rate primarily affects Chinese litigants.
  3. Foreigners, and especially Americans, use the courts primarily to litigate patent validity matters. There were 4.5 times more administrative semiconductor patent cases brought by Americans compared to infringement cases. Overall foreigners brought four times more validity cases compared to infringement cases in this area.  This means that the Beijing IP Court, which hears all validity disputes, plays a key role for foreigners on semiconductor patent matters.  Semiconductor patent cases also follow the general pattern where foreigners are disproportionately willing to challenge SIPO in court, but are less willing to bring infringement cases to final adjudication.
  4. Utility model and design patents are frequently asserted in patent disputes in China and may have value to foreign companies needing to protect their IP in this important market.
  5. The Fujian courts do not appear in this IP House report. However, Fujian has already heard one high profile case (AMEC v Veeco), which was settled and does not appear to be publicly available at this time. The second high profile case, involves Micron Technologies, and is currently on-going.

I hope to blog further about the AMEC cases in the United States and China in a subsequent posting.

 

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Asia/China at IP Scholars Conference at Berkeley: Call for Papers

The Intellectual Property Scholars Conference brings together intellectual property scholars to present their works-in-progress in order to benefit from the critique of colleagues. This year, the IPSC will be held in Berkeley August 9-10, and will include a special track dedicated to Asia IP law, including – I hope a focus on empirical research and China.   I will be blogging shortly on some of the interesting research I am seeing, and I hope that scholars from different disciplines will come to discuss their work.
Regular registration for IPSC will open later this year, but if you would like to present a paper, please submit an abstract using this form: https://goo.gl/forms/XHS y4eniAX6tuud63.
Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 25, 2018.
 
Deadline for submission of full papers or presentation slides: August 1, 201
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Update on Research on Technology Protectionism and the Chinese Patent System

Prof. Gaétan de Rassenfosse and Dr. Emilio Raiteri (both at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland) have recently offered interesting statistical evidence for preferential treatment of domestic applicants and a potential issue with national treatment in patent applications in China. Their work shows that inventions by foreign firms were less likely to be granted patent protection, after adjusting for a range of other factors. However, their study of more than half a million patent applications reveals that only applications in “strategic” technology areas faced negative discrimination. More precisely, the probability that strategic patent applications by foreign firms will be granted is 5 to 15 percentage points lower than expected in the absence of discrimination.

Strategic technologies were identified using the ‘‘National Medium and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development 2006–2020’’ (“MLP”). The MLP, issued by the State Council, seeks to make China an innovation-driven nation by fostering indigenous innovation in selected technologies, including telecommunications, biotechnology, and energy. Regarding telecommunications, the authors (with the co-authorship of Rudi Bekker of the Netherlands) find in another article that discrimination against foreigners was particularly strong among standard-essential patents, an issue that was recently discussed by Professor de Rassenfosse in a recent webinar.

For background, one useful comparison of the MLP with other macro innovation/industrial policies has been prepared by Prof. Scott Kennedy.

There have been many complaints related to unfair treatment of foreign rights holders in the judicial system, and there has been some recent scholarship and support in analyses of newly launched databases, which suggests that China made significant progress in the area. Some of the sociological studies suggest that larger companies in China (as elsewhere), however, generally fare better in court.

The current paper focuses on the consideration of disparate treatment and its causes in the patent system. However, the reason(s) for the effect is unclear and the authors are cautious not to infer that discrimination is intentional. They have ruled out a large number of possible explanations (such as differences in patent quality or in the quality of the translation into Chinese), but they suggest more work is needed to fully understand the source of anti-foreign outcomes for applicants.

The authors are not alone in looking at differential treatment by national patent offices.  Using data on about 50,000 patent applications granted by the USPTO and filed in the years 1990–1995 at the EPO and the JPO, Prof. Elizabeth Webster and colleagues (then at the University of Melbourne, Australia) had found that domestic applicants were more likely than foreign applicants to be granted patent protection, after certain normalizing adjustments. The authors in another paper noted that despite the efforts then subsisting of the trilateral offices (and other supporting efforts under the umbrella of patent harmonization), there is significant disharmony in the patent application outcomes across the trilateral patent offices. For instance, the overall rejection rate for patent applications that have been granted by the USPTO was 25 percent for the JPO and 5 percent for the EPO.  Webster and her co-authors note that there are numerous reasons why patent application outcomes may vary with priority country status.  In light of recent changes in US practice due to Supreme Court decisions, one may also wonder whether differences in examination in certain areas, such as software-enabled inventions and biotechnology can also skew results in favor of local companies who have more up to the date information, are focused on the domestic market and may even have attracted capital upon the expectation of a local patent grant.

The papers on Chinese patent applications however are notable in that they (a) utilized a larger cohort of patent applications, (b) made comparisons in treatment by one office (SIPO) and (c) analyzed such treatment in light of articulated national industrial policies, and in comparison to treatment where no such national industrial policy is implicated.   The papers may suggest that political pressure, when it exists in China, may be more likely where there are clear national interests at stake rather in any matter in which a foreigner is involved.  Indeed, litigation data suggests that foreigners do well in Chinese courts; there is limited research on litigation outcomes when the subject is a matter of an articulated national industrial policy, such as these studies might suggest.

Written by Gaetan de Rasenfosse, edited by Mark Cohen.

The views expressed herein are the author’s own.