S Sam Li and Honghui Hu of Wan Hui Da – Peksung IP Group
explain three important Supreme Court cases on pharmaceutical
patents.
With some ten thousand cases a year, Chinese law on patent
litigation is dynamic. Courts, particularly the Supreme
People's Court (the Court), lead the advancement of the law.
This article seeks to convey a sense of these developments through
three key decisions.
The Simcere Case – amendment of patent
claims
The Patent Law Article 33 limits amendments of patent claims to
the original disclosure and scope of protection. The Patent
Examination Guideline (the Guideline) only permits amendments if
they can be directly and unambiguously determined from the original
disclosure. It further limits the types of amendment to: deletion
of claims, combination of claims and deletion of technical
solutions within a claim. The Guideline's restrictive
prescriptions and rigid applications give rise to broad
dissatisfaction. From 2010, the Court has
