On December 10, 2020, China’s Supreme People’s Court released “Guidelines for Enforcement of Intellectual Property Judgments” (知识产权判决执行工作指南). The Guidelines have 29 Articles that cover the types of cases the Guidelines cover; enforcement of civil intellectual property cases; enforcement of intellectual property administrative cases; and enforcement of criminal intellectual property cases.
Category: Patents
Guest Post: Contradictory Interpretations of Means-plus-function Claims in China
This article a guest post by Xiao HAN (Ms.) and Haoyu (Elliot) ZHOU (Mr.). According to the Chinese Patent Law and practice, means-plus-function claims are interpreted differently at the time of Chinese patent prosecution and Chinese patent litigation. Basically, while “means-plus-function” claims are interpreted as “any means that could achieve the function” by examiner(s) during patent examination (i.e., a broad claim that is difficult to be granted), such claims are merely interpreted as “embodiments disclosed in the Specification, or equivalent …
China Releases Draft Implementation Rules of the Patent Law
On November 27, 2020, the China National Intellectual Property Administration released the draft implementation rules for the amended Patent Law (专利法实施细则修改建议（征求意见稿)). The draft rules cover changes required to implement the amended patent law, including patent term extension and adjustment, partial design patents, open licensing system and other areas. The draft rules also add the right to restore priority.
China and U.S. Rank Even in Wireless Communication Patent Applications Worldwide Through October 2020
According to a study released November 19, 2020 by Incopat, China and the U.S. are running even on worldwide wireless communication patent application publications from January to October 2020. Specifically, in the field of H04W (wireless communication networks), which includes 5G, China and the U.S. both have 32% of the worldwide published patent applications. Japan comes in third with 15%. The top Chinese filer was Huawei with 8,607 published patent applications and the top U.S. filer was Qualcomm with 5,807 …