Brief Introduction To The Patent Law Amendments (Draft)

The draft amendments to the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the draft) were published for comments from the public on the National People's Congress website on January 4, 2019, after deliberation by the 13th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. The draft proposes mainly three aspects of changes, i) measures for enhanced patent protection; ii) promotion of exploitation and application of patent, and iii) more user-friendly proceedings. The following will focus only on some of those.

1. The draft increases damages for infringement of patent rights

The damages for patent infringement is now determined on the loss of the patent owner, the profit of the infringer or by reference to the royalties. Statutory damages of no less than RMB 10,000 and no more than RMB 1,000,000 may be awarded when the damages cannot be determined by the preceding methods. According to the draft, for willful patent infringement with