2016 Mid-Winter China Committee Report

AIPLA Committee Report and Workplan

DATE: Febrauary 25, 2016 MEETING: Mid-Winter Institute 2016

COMMITTEE NAME: IP Practice in China

COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP: Co-Chairs: James Pan and Craig Tucker

MISSION OF THE COMMITTEE AS IT RELATES TO AIPLA’s VISION, MISSION, and VALUES:

Section 1. Under the guidance of the President and the Executive Director, this committee shall:

(a) Establish and maintain relations with professional societies in China whose members are interested in intellectual property law.

(b) Study the law and practice of China and report on issues of interest to the association Board of Directors and membership.

(c) Provide information on U.S. intellectual property law to any interested party in China, if called upon to do so.

Section 2. This committee shall coordinate its activities with the International and Foreign Law Committee as well as other substantive Committees.

PROJECTS:

2016 delegation to China: This year’s trip will visit Beijing and Shanghai June 12 - 17. A detailed schedule is being developed with plans to meet with SIPO, the Trademark Office, Supreme Peoples’ Court, the specialized IP courts in both cities, SAIC, various professional organizations and tech parks or Chinese corporations to discuss a broad range of IP related topics. Details and a call for delegates will be forth coming late March/early April. Demi Wang, Shaobin Zhu and Brad Chin form the planning sub- committee. Plans for next meetings:

There will be a Committee business meeting at the Spring Meeting that will include final planning for the China delegation.

We are planning a joint CLE program between the Patent Law Committee and our committee to discuss the patent eligibility and related issues for medical Diagnostics in the U.S. and China. Plans for the 2016 Annual Meeting are also underway under and hope to include another joint CLE program as well as Committee business meeting including a substantive law presentation if possible. Dennis Cuncan and Letao Qin will lead a planning sub-committee for these events.

We have also begun what is hoped to become regular teleconferences for the have general membership to progress committee work. The next teleconference will be the week of March 14th.

Plans for communication with the committee clusters/board liaisons:

We will continue to participate in the Global Sector Leadership monthly telephone conferences. We will make plans to engage other substantive committees (for example, standards, TM, design, antitrust) and cooperate with them on commenting on developments of the respective laws in China.

ADVOCACY:

Our committee assisted the Board of Directors to provide comments on the Draft Fourth Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law, which was submitted on January 1. We also worked with the Standards and Open Source committee and the Anti-Trust committee to prepare comments in response to the NDRC’s revised draft Anti-Monopoly Guidelines against Abuse of IP rights. We are also presently finalizing comments to SAIC’s draft guidelines regarding Abuse of IP rights. Our translation team, which continues to grow, is working quite well and plays a key role in the committee’s ability to provide such advocacy. James has lead in the organization and running of the translation team.

We plan to continue monitoring, reviewing, evaluating, and participating in public comment and preparing translations for AIPLA’s comments on revisions to the Chinese Trademark Law, Standards Guidelines, the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law, Chinese Patent Law, and other related IP issues on behalf of AIPLA.

PUBLIC EDUCATION:

Committee will bolster the microsite to improve dissemination of summaries and practice tips covering Chinese IP law to make it a more useful first stop resource for the membership. Further, the committee is partnering with other committees to provide CLE programs at the various AIPLA meetings, as well as seminars during the China Delegation. SIPO has also initiated talks with the committee to produce a series of webinars on US IP law designed for educating their examiner’s corp and perhaps other IP related organizations in China.

MEMBER SERVICE:

(a) Soliciting comments and needs from members and acting to meet the needs from the members;

(b) Organizing a delegation to visit China in 2016;

(c) Encouraging AIPLA members to join China IP Practice Committee;

(d) Encouraging Chinese IP professionals to join AIPLA and China IP Practice Committee.

(e) Develop and implement bi-monthly teleconference program for all committee members with the intent of improving communications, participation and advancement of project work.

GLOBAL OUTREACH:

(a) Maintaining existing relationship with Chinese IP organizations, such as ACPAA, CIPS, ACLA, Zhejiang IP Office, Shanghai IP Office, Jiangsu IP Office, Xi’an IP Office, Tianjin IP Office;

(b) Developing new relationship with Chinese IP organizations, such as Beijing IP Office, Guangdong IP Office, Shanghai IP Office, and Sichuan IP Office; (c) Inviting Chinese and American speakers to participate in panel discussions and CLE programs at AIPLA Spring Meeting and the Annual Meetings;

(d) Outreaching to potential members in China and identify/recruit potential leaders from China (e.g., US practitioners stationed in China or Chinese practitioners interested in more active roles in the Committee).

(e) Our Committee is also working on a China Precedent Project, in which significant Chinese IP cases will be selected, reviewed, translated, commented on, and posted in a database available to AIPLA members. We would start with a limited number of Chinese courts. We’ll need to cooperate with multiple parties such as US and Chinese law firms, law schools, USPTO, etc. on developing this long term project.

ADDITIONAL SUBCOMMITTEES:

We plan to form additional subcommittees for development and maintenance of the Microsite and for the China Precedent Project.