China has been implementing a plethora of new laws and measures that are particularly favorable to drug companies, such as patent term extension and patent linkage. Details of the new implementation measures for patent linkage (technically “early dispute resolution mechanisms for drug patents”) came into effect on July 4, 2021. At around the same time, China’s public registration system for innovator companies to list patent associated with marketed drugs (China’s version of the US FDA’s “Orange Book”) began accepting registrations. It has been close to one year since these mechanisms were put in place. Now, the first legal decisions from these patent challenges are coming out. China’s Patent Linkage System…
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What Kind of Damage Awards Can You Get in China?
Is it worth filing for a patent in China? What kind of damage awards can you get? Pharma companies care more about injunction than damage awards, since it’s quite unlikely that any damage award can compensate for the large amounts of money that may be lost for patent infringement. Chinese courts often issue injunctions in pharma patent litigations (both by the court and administrative enforcement bureaus), though damage awards are possible too. Although not all court cases are publicly available, there have been some recent published cases with pretty high damage awards, ranging from $750K USD to $25M USD. Keep in mind these are cases litigated under the old patent…
- China, Court Cases, Courts, EIP Coffee Break, EIP Patent 101 Corner, prosecution, Supreme People's Court
Do Invention and UM Patents Filed on the Same Day Rise and Fall Together?
Snippets of Court Cases, Provisions, and Key Observations about China’s IP Landscape Seminal Cases by the SPC Recently, the Intellectual Property Division of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued a list of seminal (精品) cases. Although China is not a case law country, such seminal cases issued by the SPC have high guiding impact for similar cases in the future, so they are still worthy of attention. One of the seminal cases ((2020) 最高法知民终699号) is very interesting. It involves a set of “same day applications”, i.e. an invention patent and utility model (UM) patent directed towards the same invention filed on the same day. The key issue is: if the…