Professional Biography:
Tom Irving has some 45 years of experience in intellectual property law. His U.S. pharma practice includes America Invents Act (AIA) post-grant proceedings, due diligence, counseling, patent prosecution, reissue, and reexamination. In addition to advising on procuring strong U.S. patents, Tom counsels clients on a wide range of mainly pharmaceutical matters, including pre-litigation, Orange Book listings of patents covering FDA-approved drugs, infringement issues, enforceability, supplemental examination, and validity analysis. He has served as lead counsel in numerous patent interferences, reissues, and reexaminations; as lead counsel in numerous AIA post-grant proceedings; and as an expert witness in patent litigation and patent procurement.
Monday, February 15, 2021
As is often the case in China, a critical change in the IP system has taken place without the publicity of a new law but with an internal administrative document hidden on a government website. With an administrative Circular issued on January 27, 2021, the China IP office is rewriting the rules that led to the massive surge in low-quality patent filings (a/k/a junk patents) by Chinese firms during the last decade, while subtly changing the scope of the statutory rules on the examination of utility models and design patents. The ultimate goal is another implementation of an old Marxist rule, namely, the transformation from quantity to quality.
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China’s State Intellectual Property Office issued a notice recently to radically change the country’s patent policy. It seeks to transform China from focusing on the number of patents to focusing on the quality of patents, in an effort to boost true indigenous innovation.
The policies include measures to cancel all patent subsidies, crack down on improper behavior to artificially increase patent filing numbers, and to tie patent numbers to other benefits.
At the same time, State Intellectual Property Office together with the the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly issued a notice to ask universities to stop granting awards for patent applications, drastically reduce and gradually cancel awards for patent authorization.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
On December 15, 2020, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released the First Batch of Guiding Cases for Administrative Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (第一批知识产权行政执法指导案例). Administrative enforcement enables rights holders in China to petition administrative agencies to enforce their rights including issuing injunctions, seizing and destroying infringing goods and manufacturing equipment, and imposing fines on infringers. The First Batch includes 5 guiding cases for administrative enforcement of patents, trademarks, and integrated circuit layout designs.
Case 1: Shanghai Chongming District Market Supervision Bureau investigated Shanghai Zhangyuan Information Technology Co., Ltd. for infringing on the exclusive right of Dun & Bradstreet’s (D&B’s) registered trademark.
[Photo/VCG]
The State Intellectual Property Office of China received 1.4 million patent applications last year, leading the worldwide figure in that category for the ninth year in a row, according to a World Intellectual Property Organization report.
The World Intellectual Property Indicators 2020 report shows that China s intellectual property rights protection work is fruitful. The Chinese government prioritizes promotion of technology innovation in its work and has carved out an intellectual property protection path with Chinese characteristics.
China actively participates in international cooperation in intellectual property protection and contributes to the global intellectual property governance system. Also, the concept that to protect intellectual property is to protect innovation is now ingrained in Chinese society.