1. On January 6, 2025, the Supreme Court released “Opinions on providing high-quality judicial services to safeguard scientific and technological innovation”. << Article 16 of the Opinions regulates “(The courts should) legally and fully utilize the compensation system to make infringers pay a higher price. (The courts should) increase the strength of compensation for intellectual property infringement damages in accordance with the law, and reasonably apply rules of evidence and economic analysis methods to determine, compensate for, and recover market damages caused by infringement, ensuring that right holders receive adequate and full compensation. (The courts should) strengthen the application of punitive damages and support the punitive damage claims of right holders in accordance with the law.” (excerpts from the Article 16) >>
<<https://www.court.gov.cn/zixun/xiangqing/452041.html >>
2. On January 6, 2025, the Supreme Court released a typical case regarding criteria for supplementary experimental data. << Case No. Supreme People's Court IP Admin Final (2022) 287: In the administrative litigation over the invalidity of invention patent No. ZL200680025545.1 involving The Board of Regents of the University of California (patentee) and Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd., the court upheld the validity of the patent, and the court clarified some acceptable criteria for supplementary experimental data for proving inventive step. Specifically, the proof purpose of the patentee-submitted supplementary experimental data is reasonable, if the data comes from the experimental methods identical to the methods of the involved patent, in order to demonstrate the technical effects that have been disclosed in the patent specification of the involved patent and are superior to those of the closest prior art, thereby further proving that the technical solution of the involved patent is inventive. Such supplementary experimental data should be permitted, as long as it is not intended to remedy the inherent deficiencies of the original patent application documents, based on the purpose of proving through the supplementary experimental data and the technical effects disclosed in the patent specification of the involved patent. >>
<< https://www.court.gov.cn/zixun/xiangqing/452031.html >>
3. On February 10, 2025, China State Council’s executive meeting reviewed and approved the Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment in 2025. <<Article 20 of the Action Plan regulates “Encourage foreign-invested enterprises to obtain intellectual property registration and take firm actions against infringement acts on the IPR of foreign-invested enterprises in the import and export process.” >> <<https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/202502/content_7004409.htm>>
4. Effective on January 20, 2024, some applicant-friendly changes in practice were adopted by the revised Implementing Regulations of Patent Law: << two months grace period after expiration of 12-month deadline is available for filing of regular invention or utility model in China; addition of or correction to priority claims is available; correction to filed specification using Incorporation by Reference is acceptable; patent term adjustment (PTA) to the unreasonable delay by the CNIPA; China joined Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs. >>
5. Limitation on changing protection scope of Chinese design patent application after receiving office action: << Under current Chinese patent practice, after an office action for Chinese design patent application was received, the applicant normally cannot change the protection scope, i.e., changing the solid lines into dashed lines or changing the dashed lines into solid lines unless to overcome the defect pointed out by the examiner. The applicant has only one chance to voluntarily amend the design applicant, i.e. within two months from filling date. Through the voluntary amendment, the applicant may change the solid lines into dashed lines or change the dashed lines into solid lines.