This webinar will provide a thorough grounding in the law and practice of obtaining and enforcing design patents in China. Experts say design patents are underutilized in China by foreign companies, to their detriment. Chinese companies certainly act as if Chinese design patents can give them an edge. More than one-third of all patent applications filed in China by domestic entities are for design patents, compared to just 10 percent of all patent applications filed in China by foreign applicants.
As many a foreign company has discovered, if it doesn’t register its designs in China, there’s a good chance a Chinese company will — and the foreign company may be forced to pay a license for use of its own design. U.S., Japanese, and Korean automakers have repeatedly accused Chinese companies of stealing their designs, only to find the accused patented the designs first in China. Last year, Apple faced a widely reported ban on sales of its iPhone 6 in China after an administrative agency found that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus infringed on the design patent rights of a Chinese manufacturer, Shenzhen Baili. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court later revoked the ban and Apple’s sales continue unimpeded.
Our panel – a leader of the USPTO’s “China team” who was previously a law-firm patent litigator, a Beijing-based lawyer who specializes in design patents, and an in-house patent counsel at a major multinational – will discuss the role of different Chinese government entities and regulators in infringement disputes. Other issues they will discuss include:
- The ramifications of China’s refusal to recognize partial designs.
- Differences between U.S. law and Chinese law with respect to protection against unauthorized use of a product protected by a design patent.
- Special concerns in patenting GUIs (graphical user interfaces).
- The interaction of utility patents and design patents in China, differences in the jurisprudence applicable to each, and whether it is possible to obtain both types of protection on one product.
Speakers:
- Bart Fisher, Caterpillar Inc.
- Biqing Huang, CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office
- Elaine Wu, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
