In a press conference on July 9, 2020, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released high-level patent filing data for the first half of 2020. Highlights included 683 thousand invention patents filed, 217 thousand invention patents grants, and 29 thousand Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications were filed. The number of Chinese invention patent applications now slightly exceed 2019 year on year (649,129 invention patent applications were filed in H1 2019) showing full recovery from the prior drop in filings …
China Releases Draft Amended Patent Law for Comment
China’s National People’s Congress has released Amendments to the Patent Law (Second Review Draft) for comment on July 3, 2020. Comments are due August 16, 2020. The draft amendment to China’s patent law will significantly increase damages by introducing punitive damages, raising the statutory damages, and increasing the statute of limitations. Major amendments to the patent law focus on designs, damages, patent term adjustments, patent term extensions and patent linkage.
China’s Draft Amendments to Criminal Law Include U.S. Economic Espionage Act Provision
Updated July 14, 2020 to reflect Mark Cohen’s thoughts. China’s National People’s Congress has released the Criminal Law Amendment (Eleven) (Draft) for comments. Perhaps because of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) increased enforcement of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) targeting China as a beneficiary, the Chinese draft adds a separate provision for foreign-related trade secret theft. Specifically, Article 219 will have a new paragraph, “For stealing, spying, buying, or illegally providing trade secrets to foreign institutions, organizations, and personnel, …
Defendant in China Wind Turbine Trade Secret Theft Case Sentenced to 3-Year Prison Term
As reported by the Guangdong Higher People’s Court, the People’s Court of Huilai County of Jieyang City sentenced defendant Liu Zhongyan to three years’ imprisonment and 1 million RMB fine for criminal trade secret theft on June 29, 2020. Liu had stolen trade secrets relating to Mingyang Smart Energy Group Co., Ltd.’s first 7.25MW offshore wind turbine.