On February 28, 2022, the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court of China released its Annual Report for 2021. The report discloses statistics about Tribunal including average length of case, number of cases per judge, total number of cases heard, etc. The report also references accomplishments of the Tribunal.
Category: Patents
European Union Challenges China at the WTO Over Anti-Suit Injunctions Preventing Patent Holders from Asserting Their Rights Outside of China
On February 18, 2022, the European Union (EU) made a Request for Consultations with China over anti-suit injunctions in standard essential patent (SEPs). Chinese courts have issued these injunctions blocking patent holders from enforcing their foreign patent rights outside of China (i.e., in Europe and Japan) with extensive daily fines for violators. The dispute settlement consultations that the EU has requested are the first step in World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement proceedings. If they do not lead to a …
China to Cease Issuing Paper Patent Certificates – Request Them Before March 1, 2022
While the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) ceased automatically issuing paper patent certificates in 2020, patentees could still request a paper certificate. However, per CNIPA announcement 472 released February 11, 2022, CNIPA will no longer accept requests for paper certificates as of March 1, 2022. Accordingly, patentees looking for “old school” hard copy patent certificates need to request them by the end of February 2022. Similarly, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) proposed to cease issuing paper patent …
China Remains Top Patent Cooperation Treaty Filer in 2021
Per statistics released February 10, 2022 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), China remains the top filer of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications for the third year in a row. Chinese applicants filed 69,540 PCT applications in 2021, an increase of 0.9% versus 2020. This was followed by the U.S. (59,570 applications, +1.9%), Japan (50,260 applications, –0.6%), the Republic of Korea (20,678 applications, +3.2%) and Germany (17,322 applications, –6.4%). A PCT application is a single international application that gives …