I will be a discussant on the recent WTO arbitral decision in DS/611 before a virtual meeting Friends of the Multilateralism Group (FMG). The FMG brings together WTO Ambassadors (past and present), retirees […]
The WTO recently released its decision in DS 611, the IP enforcement case involving China’s SEP practices and transparency of China’s judicial decision making. The case makes some progress on China’s important transparency obligations.
The State Department has recently posted the revised US-China Science and Technology Agreement. The revised agreement was concluded in the waning months of the Biden Administration. The revised STA is more narrowly focused on government to government cooperation. It only partially addresses the range of IP-related issues. Nonetheless, it provides a framework for future cooperation.
SAMR’s new Antimonopoly Guideline for SEPS suggests possible new enforcement pathways for the agency, including areas that may be of concern to foreign licensors.
Three major court decisions involving SEPS, patents and foreign companies have been recently decided in China. In addition, the EU has recently released two of its submissions to the WTO regarding its dispute with China on antisuit injunctions. Nokia has also announced a global settlement with Oppo. What does the future hold for SEP litigation in China and the WTO dispute?
By assembling the briefs submitted by the EU, Australia and the United States in the WTO case DS611, a stark difference in approach emerges between the United States and the EU/Australia. It appears that the United States is allying itself more closely with China, perhaps with a goal of limiting WTO jurisdiction in certain areas. At the same time, however, the United States appears to be retreating on its long-held commitments to increasing transparency in China’s judicial and legal system.
How should one understand the overlapping rules enacted by SAMR on IP, SEPS and antitrust? Is a new wave of legislation under way? Is China planning on ramping up antitrust enforcement in SEPs? What do these legislative experiments portend in terms of China’s commitments to rule of law and the challenges faced by high tech companies – whether implementer or licensor in China?
The United States, Japan, and Canada have now asked to join the EU consultation request with China at the WTO regarding Chinese practices in issuing anti-suit injunctions (“ASIs”) for standards-essential patents (SEPs). […]
Translations and comments are made available on patent and trademark examination guidelines, Seed Law, Plant Variety JI, AUCL JI, and Oppo v Sharp. With regard to the SPC decision in Oppo v Sharp a question is raised concerning China’s efforts to regulate and take jurisdiction over global SEP royalty rate setting.
Two books, China and the WTO: Why Multilateralism Still Matter (Mavroidis and Sapir), and Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism (Zhang) consider trade and competition law aspects of the U.S.-China trade dispute. They discuss the treatment of state-owned enterprises under international trade and domestic competition law rules. They also discuss IP-specific issues, particularly forced technology transfer by or for the state and the control of abusive technology licensing practices, including the licensing of standards essential patents and China’s discriminatory Administration of Technology Import/Export Regulations (“TIER”), which has since been amended. The books and article are part of several academic and popular discourses on the disruptive and unpredictable policy agenda of the Trump administration, which also provide cautionary roadmaps for future engagement – or confrontation – with China.
Mark Allen Cohen (柯恒} is a Distinguished Senior Fellow, Director and Lecturer of the Asia IP Project at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. In total, he has nearly 40 years of private sector, public sector, etc., in-house and academic experience on IPR issues in China, including numerous publications and awards. This is his private blog.
China IPR - Intellectual Property Developments in China 