Xiao-Ru Wang, Elizabeth --- "Patent pledge enforcement in China" [2017] ELECD 532; in Contreras, L. Jorge; Jacob, Meredith (eds), "Patent Pledges" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 197

Book Title: Patent Pledges

Editor(s): Contreras, L. Jorge; Jacob, Meredith

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785362484

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Patent pledge enforcement in China

Author(s): Xiao-Ru Wang, Elizabeth

Number of pages: 12

Abstract/Description:

While patents are a relatively new phenomenon in China, the country has become a major player in patent applications and patent grants around the world. Currently, the concept of patent pledges by which patent owners willingly diminish their rights to benefit from their patents is, in general, new and unfamiliar to Chinese patent holders. Although a number of Chinese companies in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector have made patent pledges to license on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms as participants of various standards development organizations (SDOs), there is no evidence that Chinese companies have actively made patent pledges outside an SDO. Like many other countries around the world, China is active in enforcing FRAND commitments, the most well-known form of patent pledges. China’s approach to analysing and enforcing FRAND commitments has been under the abuse of dominance framework of its competition law.