GEN Law Firm

Intellectual Property, Technology Transactions, Dispute Resolution, Merger & Acquisition, Regulatory Compliance, Policy Advocacy

Partner

Mr. Jerry Xia is one of the founding partners of GEN Law Firm, and the managing partner of Shanghai office and US liaison office. With a diverse background in law and technology, he has over 20 years of experience in both private and in-house practice in China and APAC. Before returning to private practice, he was Honeywell's Deputy General Counsel and Chief IP Counsel in Asia Pacific.

Mr. Xia's practice focuses on providing strategic advice to local and international clients in the areas of intellectual property (both contentious and non-contentious), dispute resolution, brand licensing & technology transactions, M&A, compliance & regulatory compliance, policy advocacy & government affairs, etc. Particularly in terms of IP practice (patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights, etc.), he is one of the IP experts in the industrial and information technology field recognized by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). His experience and expertise encompass all kinds of IP issues such as IP enforcement and litigation, IP filing and portfolio management, product clearance and other risk management, IP transactional support, trade secret protection, etc.

Most notable is Mr. Xia's achievement in IP enforcement and litigation. He has handled numerous award-winning IP lawsuits in China, including e.g.  history-making preliminary injunctions in patent infringement litigations, a landmark trademark retrial win before the Chinese Supreme Court, a unique design of an industrial product obtaining trade dress protection under unfair competition law, and a pioneering criminal conviction of a trade secret stealer based on the remedial cost incurred by the owner. In addition, he successfully helped Honeywell obtain well-trademark recognition from the Chinese Trademark Office and won a patent litigation case in Japan.

During his tenure at Honeywell, he helped formulate the company's China IP strategy (including e.g. the inventor award policy) and establish local patent committees to have achieved a significant increase in patent generation. In addition, he also led the team to have cleared hundreds of new product introduction (NPI) projects to protect Honeywell's innovation and business growth, all of which contributed to Honeywell's ranking among Top 100 Global Innovators for 7 consecutive years.

Besides IP filing & prosecution and portfolio management, Mr. Xia is very experienced in providing transactional support to IP licensing activities, M&A due diligence (including FTO clearance) & integration, and contract drafting & negotiation. The deals he has handled include e.g. the $11B valued C919 China Big Aircraft Program and a number of joint ventures in the areas of industrial automation & safety, chemicals & materials, software and IoT.

Beyond IP practice, Mr. Xia works with his team to extend his support to other corporate legal issues such as commercial litigation and arbitration, import/export compliance, antitrust, data protection, white-collar crimes, employment law, etc. In particular, Mr. Xia has rich experience in dealing with government affairs. He has long been active in the China Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises, established strong communications with the Chinese government at different levels, and participated widely in the comment contributing activities in Chinese legislation and policy making activities. In addition, he frequently speaks at international conferences organized by the World IP Organization (WIPO), the China National IP Administration (CNIPA) & local IP offices, the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) as well as world leading universities and research institutes and publish professional articles.

Prior to his in-house position at Honeywell, Mr. Xia worked at the international law firm Baker & McKenzie based in Hong Kong for a few years and also served as legal manager for Datang Mobile, a famous Chinese telecom technology leader headquartered in Beijing, plus a period of time working for the Sino-Europe Technology Transfer Center in the Netherlands.

Mr. Xia is widely recognized in the industry. He has received a number of key awards, including “Top 15 IP Lawyers in China” from LegalBand, “Global In-house Counsel of the Year” from the World Trademark Review (WTR) magazine and the “Asia Pacific IP Individual of the Year” from the International Law Office (ILO) and the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC). He is listed on “China IP Litigation” by Chambers & Partners, “China Client Choice” by Asian Legal Business (ALB), “A-List: Top 100 Legal Elites in China” by the China Business Law Journal (CBLJ) and on the “World's Top 300 IP Strategists” by the Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine.

Chinese, English

LL.M, University of California, Berkeley

LL.M, Erasmus University Rotterdam

LL.B, Peking University

B.E., Beijing University of Chemical Technology