China Business Law Journal – March 2025

Evolution of the game

Few things are as fervently sought after by businesses as value-generating (or promising) intellectual property. After all, world-shaping milestones like the introduction of Apple II by Jobs and Wozniak, Coca-Cola’s top-secret formula, or the release of all those James Bond movies – even the publication of this journal – would not have been possible without a universally embraced system to safeguard creativity.

However, the game is constantly evolving. Sometimes, evolution is organic, such as when emerging technologies challenge the status quo; at other times the goalposts are forcibly moved by protectionist and reactionary policies that raise more questions than answers. Lately, we have witnessed both aplenty.

Who will lead the next chapter in the world’s IP race? Chinese companies, having survived a lengthy trade war with the US and a global pandemic, are eagerly throwing their hats in the ring. In our cover story, New IP battlegrounds, we look at how corporate champions in China devise IP strategies not just for today, but for the next decade.

To paint a fuller picture of the IP challenges faced by Chinese companies, Riding the wave collects a series of articles contributed by legal practitioners from various law firms, touching on a wide variety of frontier IP topics such as new trends in the SEP landscape, innovative ways to protect trade secrets, and how to overcome technological barriers that complicate evidence collection in high-end patent disputes.

Every year, thousands of IP lawyers, brand representatives, service providers and other experts converge for a week-long INTA annual meeting. This year the annual meeting is taking place in San Diego.

In On the agenda: China’s IP ecosystem, Elisabeth Stewart Bradley, INTA’s 2025 president and also vice president of innovation law at Bristol Myers Squibb, speaks about exciting changes in China’s IP regulation and consumer behaviour, while also voicing a number of concerns that have been shared by INTA members.

It would seem that, not for the first time, China-related topics are set to dominate the Asia-focused sessions, ranging from brand expansion to AI’s impact on trademark registration.

On the topic of AI, DeepSeek is a name that will undoubtedly be thrown around by attendees, even though the app is currently shelved in many countries over data and security concerns.

In DeepThink: Overseas compliance, Kenneth Zhou, head of legal and compliance (Asia-Pacific North) at SIG Group, shares his take on what went wrong in the startup’s struggles with Italy’s data authorities, and simple steps that companies can do to avoid regulatory minefields in both domestic data activities and overseas.