The Greater China IP Updates ˇV November 2022

By Lyndon 

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China Assesses IP Commercialization

China attributed several concrete measures that have increased IP commercialization at a press conference in Beijing on 24 August 2022.  Firstly, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has been building an IPR operation system by establishing 33 IPR centers which brings together IPR buyers and sellers while providing support for deals and transactions.  CNIPA has also partnered with the Ministry of Finance in building operation platforms, institutes, allocating funds and executing programs in key cities.  The IPR evaluation system has been refined, a national standard for patent evaluation has been designed, statistics on patent royalty rates of recorded licensing agreements have been published, and a system to detect prices of IPR deals has been formed.  CNIPA has also joined hands with the Ministry of Finance to implement a special program on patent commercialization while demanding local administrators bond patent open-licensing pilot programs with patent commercialization programs and to integrate with IPR operations of universities and enterprises. .

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Hunan Province of China Boosts IP Development

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and Hunan Provincial Peopleˇ¦s Government held a conference promoting the provinceˇ¦s innovation strategy.  Hunan authorities have been sparing no efforts in strengthening IP work in the province, such as initiating the construction of an IP Protection Center and ensuring the completion of the building is on schedule.  As part of the nationwide plan to strengthen the IP field, the local team members have been focusing on IP protection and IP commercialization and use.  The results speak for themselves with a total of 80,600 invention patents to date and with 1,142 applications ongoing.

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Highlights of Amendments to the China Patent Law

The CNIPA recently issued a summary of the updates to the Amendments to the China Patent law originally issued in June, 2021.  The major aspects are as follows:

1. The amended Patent Law increased the statutory sum of damages to a range between RMB 30,000 and 5,000,000.  The increase is taking into account the difficulties faced by the patentee when trying to collect evidence of infringement.
2. The system regarding design patents has been improved.  Protection on partial design is now allowed.  The protection period of design patents has been extended to 15 years.  Also, within six months of filing the first domestic design patent application, an applicant can claim priority when filing another domestic application for the same subject matter.
3. Pharmaceutical patent term restoration, a compensation for the amount of time taken up by the review and approval process for new drugs, has been introduced.  For invention patents related to new drugs that have received permission, term restoration shall be granted in response to the request of the patentee.  The extended term shall be no more than 5 years, and the total effective term of the patent after the launch of the drug shall be no more than 14 years.  Further, during the process of the review and approval process of a new drug, when disputes regarding patents of the new drug occur, the applicant, the relevant patentee or other interested parties can file a complaint with the court to request a ruling on whether the new drug falls within the protection scope of patents owned by other patentees.
4. The new Patent Law introduced the Open Licensing system.  A patentee can make a declaration to the relevant authorities, stating the willingness to authorize any institution or individual the right to implement the patent, and specifying the amount of royalties and the payment schedule.

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