China’s recent global FRAND determination in ZTE v. Samsung has attracted attention because it valued ZTE’s SEP portfolio at nearly twice the level of a contemporaneous English court decision. This article argues that the more important issue is not the royalty rate itself, but the methodology used to measure technological contribution. The Chongqing court relied heavily on declared SEP-family shares, portfolio metrics, territorial weighting, and other quantitative indicators that are closely associated with longstanding Chinese innovation policies encouraging patent accumulation, standards participation, and portfolio expansion. By comparing the decision to earlier Chinese FRAND jurisprudence, the English Samsung decision, USPTO research, and broader debates over Chinese patent statistics, the article explores whether these metrics accurately measure technological contribution or instead reward portfolio scale and geographic concentration. The case may signal an important shift in Chinese FRAND adjudication from disputes over the meaning of FRAND to a deeper debate over how FRAND value itself should be measured.
Developments in Online Civil Copyright Enforcement in China: NCAC’s Analysis
The National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), in its 2014 Annual Report Online Copyright Protection in China (2014年中国网络版权保护年度报告), analyzed published opinions on online civil copyright cases involving the “right of transmission to […]
China’s Rising Presence in the IPO Top 300
Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) recently released its top 300 organizations granted US patents in 2014. Many Chinese companies made the top 300. TSMC was the top amongst Mainland or Taiwan companies, ranking number […]
IP Developments in Beijing
The newsletter of the Beijing Intellectual Property Institute (www.bipi.org) reports the following related developments in Beijing in its January 2014 edition: First, due to the rapid increase in IP cases in the […]
SIPO’s 2012 “Report on the Situation Regarding National Patent Strength”
SIPO’s recently released its “Report on the Situation Regarding National Patent Strength”, (Chinese: “2012年全国专利实力状况报告”). This report provides a glimpse into the various measures that SIPO uses to quantify how local patent offices […]
Understanding Service Inventions – Data
I recently gave a talk on service inventions in China – inventions made while in the employ of a company, using its materials and tools. SIPO has published a draft of its […]
Foreign IP Litigation in China: How Important Is It?
Here’s some humbling data drawn from the Annual Judgment Data of the Supreme People’s Court (2011). These data are a reminder that the IP docket is a small part of the overall […]
