Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation of China revised and issued the Provisions on the Prohibition of the Abuse of Intellectual Property to Exclude or Restrict Competition, which will be officially implemented from August 1, 2023.

Compared to the Provisions on the Prohibition of the Abuse of Intellectual Property to Exclude or Restrict Competition formulated in 2015, the following aspects have been revised and improved emphatically:

One is to expand the connotation of "the abuse of intellectual property to exclude or restrict competition". The adjustment scope includes three types of monopolistic behaviors: reaching monopoly agreements through the exercise of intellectual property, abusing market dominance, and implementing concentration of operators that have or may have the effect of excluding or restricting competition.

The second aspect is to improve the recognition rules for monopolistic behavior through the exercise of intellectual property. According to the Antimonopoly Law revised in 2022, in combination with the characteristics of intellectual property and the reality of supervision, the definition of relevant market, the recognition and presumption of market dominance, the recognition of related monopoly behaviors, the consideration factors of review of concentration of operators and the specific types of additional restrictive conditions will be improved and refined so as to enhance the guidance and operability of the rules.

The third aspect is to strengthen the regulation of typical and special monopolistic behaviors in the field of intellectual property, such as improving relevant regulations on patent pooling; prohibiting patent pooling entities and members of patent pooling to engage in monopolistic behaviors through patent pooling; strengthening the regulation of related monopolistic behaviors in the process of standard formulation and implementation; and prohibiting operators with dominant market positions from using standard essential patents to implement "patent holdup".

Attachment of the full text: Provisions on the Prohibition of the Abuse of Intellectual Property to Exclude or Restrict Competition

(Source: IPRdaily)

On July 6, during the 64^th series of meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), at the opening ceremony of the celebration of CHINA-WIPO 50^th ANNIVERSARY, a ceremony was held for China authorized entities to join the Global Book Service of the Accessible Books Consortium. ZHANG Jianchun, Vice Minister of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, handed over the authorized entity agreement signed by Chinese Braille Press, and Chinese Braille Library with WIPO to Ms. Forbin, Deputy Director General of WIPO. The above two units have made informative filings in accordance with the Interim Provisions on Providing Works to the dyslexicin an Accessible Manner issued by the National Copyright Administration of China, and have joined the Global Book Service of the Accessible Books Consortium as authorized entities for the first time in China.

China's ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty and accession to the Global Book Service of the Accessible Books Consortium are another important milestone in the cooperation between the WIPO and China following the conclusion of the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances.

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

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) will, in the form of a pilot project, make convenient arrangements for prioritized examination of invention patents of Macau Special Administrative Region applicants in Chinese mainland.

According to the pilot project, as of July 1, 2023, permanent residents in the Macau Special Administrative Region and companies established in accordance with the Commercial Code of Macau Special Administrative Region and other legal entities or organizations in the Macau Special Administrative Region can submit relevant application documents through the Guangzhou Agency and Shenzhen Agency of the Patent Office of CNIPA, so that eligible patent application for invention can obtain prioritized examination in Chinese mainland.

The patent application for invention applicable to the pilot project shall be a patent application for invention in the substantive examination phase of Macau Special Administrative Region applicants in Chinese mainland, which pertains to a technical field of the Measures for the Administration of the Prioritized Examination of Patents (No. 76 Order of CNIPA), with its relevant application classification number falling within the scope of the Relationship Table for Reference of Strategic Emerging Industry Classification and International Patent Classification (2021) (Pilot).

Macau Special Administrative Region applicants can submit application documents for prioritized examination of patents to the service window of the Guangzhou Agency or Shenzhen Agency of the Patent Office of CNIPA in person or by mail, but shall not submit the request for prioritized examination of the same patent application to the two agencies repeatedly. For the specific application procedure, please refer to the website of Guangzhou Agency or Shenzhen Agency and application guidelines for prioritized examination of invention patents of Macau Special Administrative Region applicants in Chinese mainland.

Material for reference: application guidelines for prioritized examination of invention patents of Macau Special Administrative Region applicants in Chinese mainland

(Source: website of CNIPA)

According to the joint decision of China National Intellectual Property Administration and the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property (ROSPATENT), China-Russia Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Pilot Project will be extended indefinitely from July 1, 2023, and the requirements for and procedures of participating in the present pilot project shall continue to follow the China-Russia PPH Guidelines.

(Source: website of CNIPA)

From June 12 to 15 local time, the 16^th IP5 Heads of Offices Meeting was held in the United States. SHEN Changyu, Commissioner of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), led a delegation to the event.

This year's event included Sustainable Innovation Dialogue, and IP5 Heads and IP5 Heads & Industry Meeting. The heads of the IP5 offices approved achieved results of the ongoing cooperation projects and the next work plans, and discussed the main focus of future cooperation. The meeting passed the IP5 Joint Statement, and updated the vision of IP5 cooperation by adding "building a sustainable future" into the cooperation objectives.

(Source: CNIPA Official WeChat Account)

Case Brief

Petitioner: Beijing Donglaishun Group Co., Ltd.

Respondent: LIU Yuzhi

The main reasons made by the petitioner are the following: the respondent has obvious subjective malice, and the disputed trademark constitutes a reproduction or imitation of the trademark "东来顺" of the petitioner, which violates the provision of Article 13 of the Trademark Law.

After trial, the Trademark Office believes that when the petitioner filed a request for invalidation of the disputed trademark, it had been more than 5 years since the date of registration of the disputed trademark. According to the provision of Article 45 of the Trademark Law, the petitioner not only needs to provide evidence to prove that the trademark "东来顺" has been well-known to the relevant public before the application date of the disputed trademark, but also needs to prove that the owner of the disputed trademark had malice. The evidence on record submitted by the petitioner can prove that "东来顺" has been identified as a China Time-honored Brand before the application date of the disputed trademark, and has reached the popularity widely known by the relevant public, while the trademark owned by the respondent involves multiple categories of goods and services, which clearly exceeds the business scope stated in the individual business license submitted by the respondent. At the same time, when the originality and popularity of the trademark "东来顺" are considered, the subjective malice of the respondent in the reproduction or imitation of the trademark "东来顺" is obvious. The registration and use of the disputed trademark can easily mislead the public and may cause harm to the rights and interests of the petitioner. According to the provision of Article 13.3 of the Trademark Law, the disputed trademark shall be invalidated.

Case Significance

The case, by applying the provision of Article 13.3 of the Trademark Law, gave China Time-honored Brand trademarks strong protection on non-similar goods, cracked down the behavior of malicious trademark registration, and played a very good guiding role in boosting the confidence of China Time-honored Brand enterprises in protecting their intellectual property, improving the awareness of intellectual property protection, helping China Time-honored Brand enterprises to glow new vitality in the new situation. (CHEN Si)

(Source: website of the CNIPA Trademark Office)

Case Brief

The petitioner Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. is the patentee of the patent for invention entitled "Dipeptidyl peptidase inhibitors", with the patent number ZL201110006009.X. The patent right involved in the case is legal and valid when the petitioner filed a request for infringement dispute resolution.

The petitioner claims that the respondents, J&K Scientific Ltd. and Beijing MREDA Technology Co., Ltd., respectively committed behaviors of offering to sell infringing products without permission. The petitioner believes that the behaviors of the above-mentioned respondents have infringed on the patent right for invention thereof, and filed a request for resolution with the Beijing Intellectual Property Office, requesting the respondents to stop behaviors of offering to sell infringing products involved in the case. Beijing Intellectual Property Office placed the case on file according to law on July 18, 2022. J&K Scientific Ltd. argues that it is unaware that the compound displayed thereby infringes on the intellectual property of the petitioner, has taken all related products off shelf, and promises not to offer to sell related products until it obtains legal qualifications for marketing. Beijing MREDA Technology Co., Ltd. argues that the official website thereof only displays patented chemical reagents involved, which does not constitute a true infringement behavior, and has removed and deleted the relevant chemical reagents from the official website thereof.

Upon trial, Beijing Intellectual Property Office believes that the products offered to sell on the relevant website of J&K Scientific Ltd. with CAS No. 850649-62-6 and a Chinese common name of Alogliptin benzoate fall within the protection scope of claims 1-3 of the patent involved in the case. The products offered to sell on the relevant website of Beijing MREDA Technology Co., Ltd. with CAS No. 850649-61-5 and a Chinese common name of Alogliptin fall into the protection scope of claims 1 and 2 of the patent involved in the case. The two respondents have the behaviors of offering to sell the products involved in the case. On November 2, 2022, Beijing Intellectual Property Office made an administrative adjudication for the two cases, ordering the respondents to stop offering to sell the infringing products involved in the case.

Expert's comments

The cases involve the infringement dispute over a patent for medical invention for the treatment and prevention of diabetes. In order to investigate the technical facts, Beijing Intellectual Property Office has assigned a technical investigation officer to issue an investigation opinion. The panel carefully makes an evaluation, provides clear technical facts, considers the evidence comprehensively, and makes a final conclusion that is professional and scientific. The petitioner is a Japanese pharmaceutical company, and the handling of the case reflects an equal treatment to domestic and foreign enterprises in intellectual property protection in China, which is conducive to building a fair market competition environment and continuously optimizing the business environment (Deputy Secretary General of Beijing Intellectual Property Judicial Protection Association: YI Penghua).

(Source: website of CNIPA)

On the afternoon of June 11, 2023, the Open Source Law and Compliance Sub-Forum of the 2023 OpenAtom Global Open Source Summit was successfully held in the National Information and Innovation Park of Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area. The theme of the forum is "Deep Reality and Wide Future of Open Source Intellectual Property". Lawyer ZHOU Dandan, partner of Unitalen Law Office, was invited to attend the forum and delivered a speech entitled "Rights Protection Strategy and Defense Response Related to Open Source Software". The forum officially released the "OpenAtom Open Source Legal Manual v1.0".

The 13^th China International Trademark Festival was held in Dongguan, Guangdong from June 16 to 19, 2023.

Unitalen won multiple honors

On the evening of June 16, the China Trademark Festival Award Ceremony and Welcome Dinner were grandly held at Regal Palace Hotel in Dongguan. Unitalen Attorneys at Law won the honor of "2021-2022 Excellent Trademark Agency" and was awarded the "Contribution to Brand and Trademark Construction" for 2023.

On June 17, at the Trademark Typical Case Analysis Forum, both the "Administrative Litigation Case of Invalidation of Trademark for '王者荣耀' in Class 33" and the "OPPO Infringement Case" represented by Unitalen Law Office were selected as "2020-2021 Trademark Agency Typical Cases".

On June 19, at the forum entitled "China Intellectual Property Talent Forum-Building a New Ecology of Chinese Trademark Talents", Unitalen Attorneys at Law was awarded the "Deputy Director Unit", Unitalen Law Office was awarded the "Committee Member Unit", Director of Unitalen, YU Zehui was appointed as the "Special Advisor" of the Trademark Talent Pool, and Lawyer ZHAO Lei was appointed as the "Senior Advisor" of the Trademark Talent Pool.

2023 Unitalen Salon|Deep Decoding of the Password for "High Compensation Amount" by Experts

In the morning of June 18, the "Unitalen Salon-Decoding the Password for High Compensation Amount", sponsored by China Trademark Association and co-organized by Unitalen Attorneys at Law, was successfully held at Regal Palace Hotel in Dongguan.

The salon officially opened under the guidance of YU Hui, President of Zhongguancun Vision Intellectual Property Innovation Institute. LIU Xiaopeng, Judge of Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court; YUE Lihao, Third-Level Senior Judge of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the High People's Court of Guangdong Province; YAO Bingbing, Vice President of Jiangsu Intellectual Property Protection and Development Research Institute, and Former President of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Intermediate People's Court of Nanjing; YIN Wei, President of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Intermediate People's Court of Wuhan; TANG Maoren, member of the Judicial Committee and President of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Jiangsu High People's Court; and Lawyer HOU Yujing, a partner of Unitalen Law Office, conducted a comprehensive analysis from various perspectives, respectively, including "Judicial Determination of Trademark Infringement Compensation", "Strategies of High Compensation for Trademark Infringement", "Observations on the Level of Trademark Infringement Compensation and Selections of Factors to Consider", "'Password' for High Compensation Amount in Trademark Cases", "Judicial Application of Discretionary Compensation Methods", and "Litigation and Evidence Strategy in High Compensation Amount Cases", so as to provide deeper thoughts for judicial practice. After more than three hours of discussion, the salon came to a successful conclusion.

Recently, the international authoritative intellectual property media "Asia IP" released the list of winners of the 2023 China IP Awards. With the outstanding performance, industry reputation, and market evaluation in the field of intellectual property business, Unitalen has been listed on the four recommendation lists of "Trademark Prosecution", "Patent Prosecution", "Patent Litigation", and "Enforcement Firms of the Year", and won the award "Regional Firms of the Year (Beijing)" consecutively!

In order to further promote Beijing-Mongolia counterpart assistance and cooperation, Unitalen recently responded actively to the initiative of Chaoyang District Federation of Industry and Commerce, participated in the investigation of Beijing-Mongolia counterpart assistance, and donated RMB 100,000 yuan to support the rural revitalization and construction of Zhuozi County in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.