Allen & Overy LLP (JD Supra China)

The IP Tribunal of the Chinese Supreme Court currently presides over the appeals of all technical IP cases in China. In two recent trade secret judgments, the Supreme Court affirmed the finding of misappropriation and awarded trade secret owners record-high damages, one for USD4.6 million and the other for approximately USD24.6m.

On Saturday 10 April 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued a landmark decision, penalising the Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba for abusing its dominant position. The Chinese authority imposed a record fine of RMB18.228 billion (USD2.8bn) on Alibaba for preventing merchants who sold their products on its online platform from dealing with other competing platforms (Deci

On January 9, 2021, the PRC Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM”) issued the Rules on Counteracting Unjustified Extra-territorial Application of Foreign Legislation and Other Measures (the “Rules”). - The Rules, along with the recently promulgated Unreliable Entity List Regulation and the PRC Export Control Law, form the pillars of China’s new trade regime, acting as both sword and shield to...

The PRC Export Control Law will come into effect soon on 1st December 2020. This new law makes a number of substantial changes to China’s current export control regulatory regime, indicating that the regulators may take a more active and pragmatic approach to broadly safeguard China’s national security and interests (especially in the area of technology) going forward.

Article 76 of the Amendment establishes the longanticipated patent linkage scheme in China. It aims to allow early resolution of patent disputes between innovators and generic companies during the drug review and approval process.

As coronavirus (Covid-19), first reported in Wuhan in December 2019, spreads across China and beyond, it has been widely reported that some Chinese companies are looking to suspend or terminate their contractual commitments. Factory closures, port and travel restrictions on goods and workers, a decline in energy demand, and reductions in consumer spending are affecting many sectors including...

On 16 January 2020, China and the United States signed the Economic and Trade Agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the United States of America (the Phase One Trade Agreement).

On 11 October 2019, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) announced a clearer accelerated timeframe for lifting foreign shareholding caps (i.e. 51%) in futures companies, public?? securities investment fund management companies and securities companies. Qualified foreign firms now have a clearer road map towards full ownership of financial service institutions in China.

The Arrangement Concerning Mutual Assistance in Court-ordered Interim Measures in Aid of Arbitral Proceedings by the Courts of the Mainland and of the HKSAR (the Arrangement), which was signed on 2 April 2019, came into effect in Mainland China and HKSAR on 1 October 2019. The Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China (the SPC) published a guidance note recently, providing...

On August 26, 2019, the China’s National People’s Congress passed the amended Drug Administration Law (the Amended DAL) which will take effect on December 1. The new law brings in some changes while codifying many existing practices. We summarize the key highlights, including intellectual property related rules, of the Amended DAL. Please see full article below for more information.

At a time when U.S.-China trade tensions are being reported as having a dramatic impact on the global economy, China’s Ministry of Commerce has announced that the actual use of foreign capital in China is still increasing steadily, indicating that foreign investment into China’s economy is not yet being significantly affected by the trade war.

The pledge by President Xi at the G20 Summit in Osaka that China would continue to liberalise market access has seen immediate progress in the form of a new update to the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries for Foreign Investment (the Industries Catalogue) and the publication of two revised negative lists governing foreign investment.

On 2 April 2019, the HKSAR Government and the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China signed the “Arrangement Concerning Mutual Assistance in Court-ordered Interim Measures in Aid of Arbitral Proceedings by the Courts of the Mainland and of the HKSAR” (the Arrangement).

On March 2, 2019, Premier Li Keqiang signed a State Council decree No.709 to amend a total of 49 regulations, including the Technology Import and Export Regulations (TIER) and the Regulations for the Implementation of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures (JV Regulations). The amendment was published on March 18, 2019 and took effect immediately. ...

The Foreign Investment Law of the People’s Republic of China (FIL) was approved and passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC) on 15 March 2019. In its current form, the FIL will become effective at the beginning of 2020, at which time it will replace the set of Chinese laws commonly known as the “Three Enterprise Laws” that has been the seminal legislation governing foreign investment in...

On 15 November 2018 the Joint Procurement Office (the JPO) published its Paper on Centralized Drug Procurement in “4+7” Cities (the Paper), which launched the national pilot scheme for tendering with minimum procurement quantities. The pilot scheme will be carried out in 11 cities: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenyang, Dalian, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Xian, which...

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has announced the launch of a nationwide campaign to crack down on unfair competition and commercial bribery in the pharmaceutical, medical device and educational sectors. The campaign comes at a time when the Chinese government has enacted key amendments to its Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL) and is gearing up for tougher enforcement...

The Chinese merger control landscape evolves as MOFCOM is replaced by the newly created State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) as the country’s merger control agency. This change becomes fully effective on 14 May 2018 as merger control officials join SAMR, which becomes the single Chinese antitrust enforcement agency. While in the short term the impact on enforcement is predicted to...

BACKGROUND - In 2006, China passed a law regulating the use of six hazardous substances found in certain electronic equipment. This law was modelled on a similar EU Directive, and was informally referred to as “China RoHS1”. In 2016, China passed a new law which repealed China RoHS1 (hereafter “China RoHS2”).

China’s National Development and Reform Commission released the Administration Measures for Outbound Investments of Enterprises on 26 December 2017. This legislation further streamlined the approval/filing process for outbound investments, increased the transparency of the regulatory regime, and extended the regulatory authority to control outbound investments more closely.

On August 18, 2017, the State Council of China issued a notice forwarding the Guiding Opinions on Further Guiding and Regulating the Direction of Outbound Investments (the Guiding Opinions) as jointly drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), People’s Bank of China (PBOC) nd Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Guiding Opinions are the first...

On November 4, 2017, at the 30th session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress (“NPC”) of China, the NPC approved a bill to amend the Law Against Unfair Competition, effective on January 1, 2018 (“2018 LAUC”). This is the first time the LAUC has been amended since it came into effect on December 1, 1993 (“1993 LAUC”). This article highlights specific amendments in the...

On May 12, Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) issued Policy Notice No. 55, entitled “Policies Relevant to the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Innovators for the Encouragement of Innovation in Drugs and Medical Devices”, for public comments. The commenting period ends on June 10. In the Notice, CFDA, for the first time, outlines the patent linkage scheme, which requires a...

China is one of the largest generic drug markets in the world. As part of the drug approval reform, the ongoing generic consistency evaluation (GCE) is likely to have significant, long-lasting impacts on the market landscape, drug pricing and generic competition. Patent cliff might inevitably follow and should be examined and planned for early. Please see full publication below for more...

The Beijing IP Court recently handed down a landmark decision concerning infringement of a standard essential patent (SEP) in the Iwncomm v. Sony case. The court found that Sony had infringed a SEP relating to a national standard. The court ordered a permanent injunction, along with damages of close to RMB 9 million for past infringement. This is believed to be the first SEP-based injunction...

Speed read - On 23 March 2017, the Antimonopoly Commission of China’s State Council (“AMC”) published the long-expected draft Guidelines on Prohibition of Abuses of Intellectual Property Rights (“draft IPR Guidelines”) for public comments. The draft IPR Guidelines aim to provide guidance on the enforcement of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”) by the Chinese competition agencies in relation...

On 22 February 2017, at the 26th session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC) of China, the State Council put forth a bill to amend the Law Against Unfair Competition (LAUC). The bill was published on 26 February on the NPC’s website, and is currently open for public comments until 25 March 2017. If passed, this would be the first time the LAUC is amended since...

China has a complicated and unique tendering system for drugs – and patents play an important role in almost every tender. What adds to the complexity is that tendering rules vary between provinces. Providing necessary patent advice has become increasingly crucial to differentiating between competitors and winning tenders in China. The main pharmaceutical market for multinational companies (M

The three Chinese antitrust authorities – Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) – overall remained very active in 2016. Besides enforcing the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), they have been busy consulting with stakeholders on proposed guidelines aimed to improve both processes and the efficiency...

On 26 January 2017, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) of China released a Circular on Further Advancing the Reform of Foreign Exchange Administration and Improving the Examination of Authenticity and Compliance (the New SAFE Rules). Taking effect as of the date of promulgation, the New SAFE Rules, among other things, expressly removed the restrictions on the repatriation of...