In China, patents applicants take advantage of a commonly-used divisional filing strategy to achieve a fine-tuned balance between protection scope and protection period (if used properly). Patent applicants (especially foreign applicants) widely welcome this well-established strategy, and up until now, have used it with much success. In fact, we recommend this strategy and have even written about this China divisional patent strategy. However, a recent judgment decision has called this strategy into question. We share more about this interesting case below. Case Background A company in Zhejiang Province (JC Company) filed a divisional application with claims having a different scope of protection from its utility model “parent” (which was about…
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How Far Can an Employer Reach to Own Employee-made “Service Inventions”?
2019 China’s Top 50 Representative IP Cases Shenzhen Weibang Technology Co. Ltd v. Li Jianyi & Shenzhen Yuancheng Intelligence Equipment Co. Ltd (2019最高法民申6342号) Each year in China there are hundreds of disputes over patent ownership. A significant part of them are related to “Service Inventions”, which are defined in Article 6 of the Chinese Patent Law as any invention made by an employee (1) in the course of performing the employee’s duties or (2) mainly by using the materials or technical means of the employer. Under Chinese patent law, these inventions automatically belong to the employer. No separate assignment or employment agreement needs to be in place. Article 12 of…
