Patent Litigation in Chinese Courts

In 2004, China saw 353,807 patent applications filed at the State Intellectual Property Office ("SIPO"). SIPO granted 190,238 patents in 2004, an increase of 4.4 percent over 2003. Of these, 151,328 went to Chinese applicants and 38,910 to foreign applicants. In China, as elsewhere, more granted patents inevitably mean more litigation. In 2004, holders of Chinese patents filed 2,549 new patent suits, an increase of about 20 percent over 2003 (and only 506 fewer than the number filed in the U.S. that year). While foreign parties have brought fewer than 5 percent of these cases so far, they increasingly are becoming involved in such litigation as either defendants or plaintiffs. It is likely that in the foreseeable future, patent litigation will become an important part of business strategy for multinational companies operating in China. Therefore, it is essential for multinational companies to understand how to litigate patents in Chinese courts.