Knowledge Exchanges on Patent Trials

China now files more patents than any other country in the world, including the U.S. In part, this has been fuelled by a government drive to encourage universities and technology firms to file. Yet whilst mobilising state policy to increase the quantity of applications has not been a challenge for China, the quality of its patent enforcement system has not fully kept up with this push for innovation. In view of the above, the Supreme People’s Court of the PRC (SPC) continues to make regulatory and procedural reforms that are closely observed by EU stakeholders. This includes the Provisions on Several Issues in relation to Behaviour Preservation Cases in Adjudicating Intellectual Property Disputes, which came into force on 1 January 2019.

Since 2014, IP Key has a long story of cooperation with the SPC with several highly successful joint activities, including the recent mission to the EU for Judicial Exchanges took place in Brussels, Luxembourg and Munich during November and December 2018. The activity covered issues related to the judicial enforcement of IPRs and overlapping issues such as Standard Essential Patents, trade secrets and trademarks.

On the basis of above, IP Key organised a ten-days long peer to peer exchange on patent trials for the delegation of the SPC.

This activity provided a great opportunity for further deepening understanding of judicial and best practice in the adjudication of patent disputes in court amongst EU and Chinese authorities, as well as providing further insights on the policy drives in China law making, in particular concerning ongoing reforms of the IP judicial enforcement system.