Senior lawyer eager to attend and help advance nation's legal governance

With China advancing new quality productive forces, a key phrase recently reiterated by its top authorities, the country is implementing an innovation-driven development strategy, placing emphasis on intellectual property rights to promote high-quality economic development and drive industrial transformation and upgrading.

In this process, IP creation, utilization, protection and management require comprehensive legal support, with law firms playing a crucial role. They not only provide professional legal advice and services but contribute significantly to policy formulation, dispute resolution and the legalization of innovative achievements, thereby helping to build a more robust and effective IP system, experts say.

"China is committed to creating a fair, just and transparent IP environment, which effectively enhances the protection for domestic enterprises and significantly boosts the confidence of multinational companies investing in the country," said Wang Maohua, a veteran IP lawyer and managing partner of the Chinese IP group of King & Wood Mallesons.

By improving laws and regulations, strengthening enforcement and enhancing judicial transparency, China aims to support corporate innovation while attracting more international companies to develop here. This approach can promote the integration and growth of domestic and international economies. Also, such a favorable IP environment can assist technology exchange, enhance market competitiveness and lay a foundation for the prosperity of the global innovation ecosystem, Wang noted.

Industry leader

Founded in 1993, King & Wood Mallesons is considered one of the most influential IP legal service institutions in China. It also serves as one of the first partnership law firms established in the country.

The law firm boasts over 3,000 lawyers and has set up 27 offices worldwide, including major cities in the Chinese mainland, as well as international financial centers like Hong Kong, Singapore and New York.

The promotion of new quality productive forces presents challenges and opportunities for IP legal services. "These forces are often represented by emerging technologies and innovative models, such as the digital economy, green technology and intelligent manufacturing. The development of these fields brings about entirely new IP issues and provides new avenues for realizing IP value," Wang said.

King & Wood Mallesons set up its IP service team in 2001, making it one of the first law firms in China to offer such services, reflecting the foresight of its founder, Wang Junfeng. This initiative has allowed the firm to gradually accumulate experience, gain a reputation among clients and contribute to IP development in China.

In response to the national strategic deployments, the firm established an IP center in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, in 2023 to continuously innovate service models in creation, operation, protection and management, maximizing the commercial value of IP rights.

In terms of talent resources, King& Wood Mallesons boasts a professional team of IP lawyers providing comprehensive and one-stop legal services. They include IP litigation, patent prosecution, trademark registrations, IP due diligence, management and transactions.

"In China's IP legal market, we stand out as an industry leader, possessing exceptional capabilities, experience, team size and industry reputation in both contentious and non-contentious matters," Wang said, adding that this makes King & Wood Mallesons the preferred partner for many large multinational corporations and Chinese industry giants.

Talent pool

In China, King & Wood Mallesons is home to around 420 IP practitioners. They are in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu. Among them, approximately 180 people specialize in IP litigation.

Overseas, it has IP lawyer teams in such countries as Australia, the United States and Japan, providing support to Chinese companies expanding abroad. Moreover, in European countries and those involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, the firm collaborates with local law firms, offering clients comprehensive, cross-jurisdictional and one-stop IP services, as well as commercially-minded and forward-thinking IP solutions.

Thanks to its integrated management model, King & Wood Mallesons can quickly assemble cross-departmental and cross-regional IP teams to handle large-scale cases.

As a result, it has an advantage in handling multiple cases simultaneously.

For example, in the telecommunications sector, the firm represented clients in one of the largest and most contentious series of standard essential patent — or SEP — disputes in global patent litigation history, assisting a global settlement between patent holders and implementers. In this series of cases, the firm handled more than 100 patent infringement and invalidation requests. It involved various types of patent cases such as patent invalidation, patent administrative and infringement litigation. It went on to reach the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the Supreme People's Court and first-instance courts in Beijing, Chongqing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Henan.

King & Wood Mallesons has achieved other records, such as representing the plaintiff in the highest IP damages case in China's judicial history, securing a total compensation of 218 million yuan ($30.8 million) for the client in the chemical industry and handling the highest damages award for a single trade secret case in China's judicial history.

Development trends

Commenting on developments and changes in the IP field over the next five years, Wang said that as Chinese enterprises, research institutions and other entities continue to launch innovative results in domestic and international markets, they will become proactive in global IP protection. They will also need teams familiar with the IP laws and regulations of different jurisdictions to help them address diverse IP issues in overseas markets.

Moreover, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, quantum computing and biotechnology are raising the complexity of IP protection and presenting challenges, he said.

For instance, with AI data assets, companies should first clarify the IP value of these assets and integrate them into their overall IP protection strategy. For data that has been meticulously organized and processed uniquely, applying for patent protection may be considered.

Also, companies need to establish strict data management and protection mechanisms, clarifying IP ownership and protection methods at every stage, from data collection and storage to usage, Wang noted.

Furthermore, in the context of global IoT standardization, the importance of SEPs is becoming prominent. "Companies that own SEPs will have a competitive edge, leading and influencing the direction of industry development. Given this fact, they should strengthen their investment in SEPs and increase the number of SEPs they own, thereby amplifying their leverage in SEP patent licensing negotiations," Wang said.

China debut

The 2024 AIPPI World Congress opens on Saturday in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. This marks the first time in over a century since AIPPI's founding that the congress is being held in China, a milestone in the development of the country's IP sector.

AIPPI is the world's leading nonprofit association dedicated to the development and improvement of laws for IP protection.

"This not only reflects the international community's high recognition of China's historic achievements in IP but highlights the country's important position in the global innovation landscape.

"It underscores China's firm commitment to promoting high-level openness to the outside world," said Wang, who is participating in the four-day gathering.

He believes the ongoing congress can enhance the international influence of China's IP sector, providing a new starting point for China's in-depth participation in global IP governance. "It will greatly promote IP exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries and regions, enhance China's voice in the international IP sector and provide Chinese wisdom to help construct a global IP governance structure based on extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits," he added.

When attending the congress, Wang is particularly interested in discussions on industry development and trends, including the balance between IP protection and innovation development, the effect of generative AI on IP legal services, and the comparison and coordination of IP protection across different jurisdictions.

He said China has made progress in strengthening IP protection in recent years and he is eager to hear about the country's IP law-related experiences shared at the congress.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn