Order of the President of the People's Republic of China No. 3

The Decision of the National People's Congress on Amending the Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China, as adopted at the 1st session of the 14th National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China on March 13, 2023, is hereby promulgated and shall come into effect on March 15, 2023.

XI Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China

March 13, 2023

Decision of the National People's Congress on Amending the Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China

(Adopted at the 1st session of the 14th National People's Congress on March 13, 2023)

At the 1st session of the 14th National People's Congress, it has been decided to make the following amendments to the Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China:

For more details, please refer to: Decision of the National People's Congress on Amending the Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China

Full text of the Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China: Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China

(Source: news.cn)

Per the arrangement among China, Japan and South Korea for the cooperation in the field of trademark protection, the correspondence table of codes for China-Japan-South Korea similar groups of goods and services under code of the Nice Classification NCL12-2023 is hereby announced.

Attachment: Nice NCL12-2023 Classification Table.xlsx

(Source: Trademark Office of China National Intellectual Property Administration)

Recently, the Quantum Computing Industry Intellectual Property Alliance & the Quantum Computing Patent Pool Establishment Conference themed on "Collaborative Innovation of Intellectual Property to Build a Quantum Future Together" was held in Beijing. At the conference, Baidu, in conjunction with the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, announced the establishment of the "Quantum Computing Patent Pool", with the aim of constructing a sturdy "fortress" for the development of quantum intellectual property in China.

Currently, the patent pool has agglomerated dozens of quantum patents and is open to and shared by alliance members and will create a cooperation bridge for alliance members to promote the formulation of industrial criteria for the quantum industry and the layout of standards-essential patents. Meanwhile, the alliance members can utter a unified voice through the patent pool to create an intellectual property environment favorable to the healthy development of quantum computing industry. In the subsequent period, the patent pool will focus on the collaboration among seven primer quantum industry fields, including quantum measurement and control, quantum security and encryption, quantum architecture and software, quantum error correction, and quantum algorithm and application.

It is reported that, the quantum industrialization innovation subjects in Beijing region rank first in the country on the number of patent applications for invention in the quantum field, and the alliance members reach a proportion of up to 70% to the total number of patent applications for invention in the quantum field in Beijing. As an alliance organization focusing on the field of quantum intellectual property, the alliance will stimulate the ongoing compliance of the high value patent cultivation, the cross grant and licensing of patents, and the innovation subjects in the quantum field with industrial criteria or the like, and arrange layouts towards critical quantum patent fields, so as to dominate the efficient development of the entire quantum industry.

(Source: http://www.iprchn.com)

Upon a joint decision by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and the Eurasian Patent Organization (EAPO), the CNIPA-EAPO PPH pilot program will be extended for an indefinite time period, starting on April 1, 2023.

For the CNIPA-EAPO PPH pilot after the extension, the PCT-PPH cooperation mode will be added on the basis of the original conventional PPH cooperation. The applicants on both sides can take advantage of the work products in the PCT international phase to file PPH requests with the CNIPA or the EAPO. For the requirements for and procedures of participating in the present pilot program, reference can be made to the updated version of CNIPA-EAPO PPH Guidelines.

PPH is an expedited patent examination passageway between different countries or regions, which accelerates the patent examination process by virtue of shared work between patent examination organs. Since the launch of the first PPH pilot in November 2011, CNIPA has successively established PPH cooperation with patent examination organs in 30 countries or regions.

The EAPO encompasses a plurality of countries in the Eurasian region. Upon the grant, the Eurasian patent enters into force in the signatory countries from the date of announcement. The extension of the CNIPA-EAPO PPH pilot program will further promote the intellectual property cooperation in countries and regions along the "Belt and Road” and serve the Chinese and Eurasian innovation subjects to accelerate the patent examination process.

Related Link: PPH Guidelines of China National Intellectual Property Administration and Eurasian Patent Organization

(Source: website of CNIPA)

Upon a joint decision by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and the Norwegian Industrial Property Office (NIPO), the CNIPA-NIPO PPH pilot program will be extended for five years effective from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2028. The requirements for and procedures of participating in the present pilot program shall continue to follow the CNIPA-NIPO PPH Guidelines.

(Source: website of CNIPA)

Case Brief

Previously, a company in Shenzhen as the patentee submitted the evidence for 5 design patents in a litigation dispute with the client company, and accordingly claimed a huge sum of compensation. Under the authorization by the client company, the Unitalen agency team, making breakthrough out of stability of patent rights, adopted countermeasures against the opponent by filing with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) a request for invalidation of 11 design patents held by the opponent, inclusive of the foregoing 5 patents.

All the patents involved are outer packaging boxes and outer packaging bags of cotton soft tissue products, with similar design elements and design styles. In this regard, 10 patents have a filing date of June 5, 2017, and 1 patent has a filing date of January 10, 2019. None of the patents protects the color of the design.

After the survey, the Unitalen agency team discovered that parts of the design patents of the patentee involve the circumstance of "use before application". Moreover, the other parts of the design patents are essentially combinations of simple design features, failing to comply with applicable provisions on granting patent rights. In order to secure that the grounds of invalidation request are recognized by the collegiate panel, the Unitalen agency team, on the basis of existing evidence, carried out an all-round, technical search on design patent invalidation targeted at the 11 design patents. The search scope included, but was not limited to, patent database, Weibo platform, TikTok short video platform, Taobao, JD.COM, SUNING.COM, maternal and child forums, other third-party websites, etc. After the search, the team obtained more favorable prior design evidence and performed preservation and fixation in a timely manner. Afterwards, with proper deliberation, the team prudently selected the optimal combination modes of invalidation evidence for the respective patents, and formulated the specific invalidation strategies for the respective cases, laying the foundation for the successful enforcement of the subsequent oral proceedings of the cases and for the overall victory in the final invalidation proceedings.

Highlights Summary

It is an alternative coping strategy to challenge the rights of rights-holders by invalidation proceedings in the case of litigation. In the present case, the Unitalen agency team closely checked the litigation evidence presented by the rights holder, and held the key clue, namely, "use before application" of sets of design features, to carry out meticulous and overall search. In addition, the agents embodied their proficiency in screening and combining evidence.

From the present case, the applicant for design patent shall note that, it is necessary to keep design solutions in proper confidentiality, thereby avoiding the circumstance of instability in the basis of rights due to prior public disclosure or use.

Case Brief

In light of Article 76.1 of the Chinese Patent Law, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit on pharmaceutical patent linkage with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, requesting to identify that the technical solution of the generic drug "Eldecalcitol Soft Capsules" of Wenzhou Haihe falls into the protection scope of patent claims involved. The court of first instance ordered to reject the litigation claims filed by Chugai Co., Ltd. Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. was dissatisfied and filed an appeal. The Supreme People's Court held in the second instance that, Wenzhou Haihe failed to make any statement on the claim with the maximum protection scope and to notify Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the marketing authorization holder, of the statement and the statement basis in a timely manner, and such failure was inappropriate and should be criticized; as for the determination of whether the technical solution of generic drug would fall into the protection scope of patent claims, in principle, comparison and evaluation should be conducted based on the application files submitted by the generic drug applicant; upon comparison, the technical solution of generic drug involved did not fall into the protection scope of patent claims. It was therefore ordered to reject the appeal and uphold the original sentence.

Typical Significance

The present case is China's first litigation case of pharmaceutical patent linkage. China's pharmaceutical patent linkage system is preliminarily established and is still in the exploration phase. The judgment of the present case embodies legislative-purpose-compliant exploratory legal application regarding new issues incurred in the initial practice phase of pharmaceutical patent linkage system and receives considerable attention and widespread praise from the Chinese and foreign media and pharmaceutical communities. CMG has promptly reported the present case, which is selected as one of the "Top Ten Nomination Cases for Promoting the Process of Rule of Law in the New Era in 2022".

(Source of case: Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China)

Case Brief

Huasui Seed Industry was the variety rights holder of "Wannuo 2000", a new variety of maize plant, and alleged to be the rights holder of technical secrets of parent "W68" of "Wannuo 2000". Huasui Seed Industry sued Bosheng Seed Industry for infringing on the technical secrets of "W68” and requested for an order of Bosheng Seed Industry assuming relevant infringement liabilities.

Result of Award

The Intermediate People's Court of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province held in the first instance that Bosheng Seed Industry constituted an infringement on rights and interests of technical secrets of "W68” and ordered it to cease the infringement and pay compensation for economic losses and reasonable expenses for safeguarding rights in a total sum of CNY 1.505 million. Bosheng Seed Industry was dissatisfied and filed an appeal, alleging that "W68" as a parent was not a protection object of business secrets. The Supreme People's Court held in the second instance that, the breeding materials with business value obtained from breeding innovation activities could obtain legal protection by law as business secrets under the circumstances of being unknown to the general public, subject to appropriate confidentiality, or the like. It was therefore ordered to reject the appeal and uphold the original sentence.

Typical Significance

The present case, as heard by the Supreme People's Court, is the first case of business secrets involving breeding materials. The judgment specifies the protection condition and protection path of the parent of new variety of hybrid maize plant as a business secret, which represents an active exploration of the people's court on protecting breeding achievements by comprehensively utilizing a plurality of intellectual property protection means, including new plant variety, patent and business secret, and is beneficial to inspire original and continuous innovation in breeding and construct a diversified and three-dimensional comprehensive legal protection system for breeding achievements.

(Source: Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China)

Beijing Unitalen Law Office is the intellectual property protection consultant of headquarters of China Post Group Corporation. Recently, Attorney LI Chunya, the Unitalen Partner, and Senior Attorney LI Andi were invited to give lectures in "Training Class on Professional Management Competence Improvement in Legal Risk Control for Postal Enterprises in 2023". During the on-site sharing and active interaction, the Unitalen attorneys delivered a particular introduction to amendment hotspots regarding the Trademark Law, the Copyright Law and the like, and in combination with typical cases of conflicts over trademark, copyright and trade name right represented by Unitalen, including "KINGDEE", "OPPO", "ZHOU LIU FU", "美丽俏佳人", "一品石", "HONDA" and "LIFESENSE", shared profoundly the compliant use of various business identifiers, ideas for resolving rights conflicts, and rights protection strategies.