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Patent law in China: all about business?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

SanDisk, no stranger to patent litigation, is involved in patent litigation in China.

Cui Xiaohuo (China Daily) reports that there was a hearing in Beijing's No 1 Intermediate People's Court on 13 Nov. 2008 in a dispute between Shenzhen firm Netac and SanDisk, who had acquired a patent for flash memory technology after the takeover of Israeli firm M-Systems, which had developed it. Lawyers for SanDisk said that as the holder of the patent in the United States, SanDisk should have priority over Netac when applying the technology in China. SanDisk is not attempting to sue Netac for patent infringement, but wants the court to cancel the Netac patent.

An earlier re-examination had apparently upheld the Netac patent: The patent reexamination board of the State Intellectual Property Office defended the conduct of the patent board during its review of the case.

China Daily had some interesting IP quotes:

Liu Yinliang, a professor of intellectual property rights at China University of Political Science and Law, said the case was the latest of many to deal with patent disputes between business rivals from China and abroad.

"It is important to understand that China's Patent Law is in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization," he said.

"This case is a technological and a business issue. It has nothing to do with protectionism in trade."

Keywords:

Deng Guoshun, founder and president of Netac
Zhou Qiang, one of SanDisk's two lawyers

Relevant past IPBiz posts:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/07/sandisk-ritek-settle-flash-memory-case.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2005/12/procedural-victory-for-sandisk-in.html (flash clash)

Full post as published by IPBiz on November 14, 2008 (boomark / email).