China IP SME Helpdesk Newsletter

This month, the State Administration for Market Regulation held a conference on the protection of trade secrets. During the conference pilot work on trade secret protection across the country was launched. The pilot program, which will be carried out in at least 20 cities and regions, “aims to benchmark its [trade secret] protection standards with international rules”. Trade secret protection is cruicial for EU SMEs and complexity of trade secret-related enforcement actions has been one of the more significant difficulties EU SMEs experience in China in terms of IP protection.

The Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China was recently revised and is set to enter into force on the 1st of August 2022. The amended law increases monetary fines for monopolistic acts and introduces “civil public interest litigation” which “ allows procuratorates in cities with subordinate districts to file such litigation at People's Courts”. The Anti-Monopoly Law has close connection to IP as explained by Ning Lizhi, Dean of IP and Competition Law Institute, Wuhan University:” If a right holder, however, abuses IP to exclude and restrict competition, the Anti-Monopoly Law may come into play.”

In April 2022, the Taiwanese legislative body passed the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act at the third reading. This act will improve the management of Collective Management Organisations and will make them more transparent as well as facilitate the circulation of copyrighted works.

See which the most recommended international IP agencies are by China IP magazine.

The EU Single Market is about to enter a new era of promoting investment in innovation. The long-awaited arrival of the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court, set to become operational in early 2023, will boost the development and trade of IP-intensive goods and services, spark up FDI flows and facilitate the scaling-up of European innovative SMEs.