Asia IP’s editorial team reveals China’s top IP firms, practices

Asia IP’s editorial team reveals China’s top IP firms, practices for 2022

06 May 2022

Steadily improving protection of intellectual property rights has been a key element of China’s rise to become one of the world’s top economies. Foreign and domestic investment alike has risen as rights owners have become increasingly confident about their ability to protect their IP within China.

As protection has increased, rights owners have turned to China’s top intellectual property practices to enforce their rights. It was this dynamic environment in which Asia IP’s editorial team has release our 2022 China IP Awards, designed to recognize and honour the top IP firms and practices, including winners in practice specialties (such as pharma, biotech and life sciences) and by region. We’ve also named a national IP Firm of the Year, which will be revealed below.

The decisions which follow were made by the Asia IP editorial team, based on feedback and recommendations received from in-house counsel, senior corporate executives and legal professionals from around the region and around the world, as well as submissions from law firms themselves.

To determine the winning firms, we carefully evaluated each firm’s most important cases, portfolios and other notable work throughout in the past year, in conjunction with the recommendations and comments we received.

We were pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of recommendations we received from those who know these IP practices the best. It is clear from the submissions we received that corporate counsel are keen observers of the firms doing work for them; they’re not afraid to praise those firms which do the best work – and they told us which firms aren’t deserving, too.

It is clear, too, that law firms are in a fierce competition with each other to make the case that they are best-situated to serve their clients well. The work firms in China do has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, and while it once would have been an easy job for us to name the top firms in each practice area, the heightened competition has made it quite challenging now.

While firms in Beijing still command the majority of the intellectual property work in China, firms in other parts of the country are increasingly competitive with each other and with firms in Beijing. Thus, we included regional awards for firms in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with Shanghai included as a nod to that region’s growing importance as a commercial and manufacturing hub, as well as its increasing strength in high-tech industries. Guangzhou is notable for its inclusion in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area collection of cities, provinces and special administrative regions in the Pearl River Delta area.

And, finally, let us include a few housekeeping statements. Our China IP Awards recognize only domestic Chinese law firms. International firms will continue to be honoured in our China International IP Awards as part of our annual Asia IP Awards ceremony. Detailing the achievements of every single winner in this feature is not possible, so it is important to say that each winning firm in each category carries the same weight and has earned the award equally. Winning firms are presented here by alphabetical order in each category, and not in any other fashion. And finally, Asia IP wishes to congratulate each of our winners!

IP Firm of the Year
CCPIT Patent & Trademark Law Office

Beijing Gaowo is regularly one of the top trademark filers in the country, with responsibility for more than 10,000 trademarks every year. The firm was established as an intellectual property agency in 2004; it now has a staff of more than 1,500, including more than 130 trademark and patent attorneys. Clients include Bentley, TMobile, China Mobile, Lenovo, SanLi, Kinghood Group and numerous universities.

Beijing Janlea Trademark Agency has assisted McDonald’s in filing applications for “Golden Arches in Chinese, DairyFarm in filing applications for Mannings and Café de Coral Assets for Café de Coral. It has also handled appeals for McDonald’s McCafe mark, and the Coca-Cola Company’s Fanta mark. The firm was established in 1995. In 2011, the firm reported that it had succeeded in having 49 of its clients’ marks recognized as well-known trademarks in China, including Sprite, Disney, Nestlé, Hu Tong and Dong Yi Ri Sheng. The firm has handled tens of thousands of cases for trademark registration.

CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office is the oldest and one of the largest full-service IP law firms in China, and it continues to provide strong results in litigation and prosecution. The firm has 292 patent and trademark attorneys, with 76 qualified attorneys-at-law. Trademark prosecution, as one of the firm’s strongest practice areas, has performed strongly in the past year, representing clients at home and abroad. The trademark team has particular strength in developing sophisticated trademark clearance, protection, enforcement and commercialization strategies for Chinese enterprises both in China and abroad.

Chang Tsi & Partners experienced a strong 2021, handling 32,953 trademark cases, an increase of 32 percent over the previous year, including more than 10,000 new trademark applications. In an important case, managing partner Simon Tsi and partner Michael Fu of Chang Tsi & Partners won the last instance of a trademark infringement case on behalf of Michael Kors (defendant), wherein all the claims by Shantou Chenghai Jianfa Handbag Craft Factory (plaintiff) were rejected. Lawyers at Toto were complimentary in comments towards the firm: “Spring Chang has an absolutely first-class team who are praised for their in-depth understanding of Chinese intellectual property laws and practices as well as their focuses on client needs. She excels at formulating IP strategies for us in the business perspective and at the same time using a strict quality control system to ensure the delivery of flawless services.”

Unitalen Attorneys at Law filed 36,295 applications for new trademark registrations in 2021, and handled 30,628 cases for post-registration work. At the 2021 (5th) China Brand Bo’ao Summit in Hainan, the firm received the award for “China (Trade) Iconic Brand.” The firm has 700 attorneys, paralegals and law clerks working from its 21 branch offices and its Beijing headquarters. The firm is also active in areas ancillary to IP protection, including broadcasting, entertainment and sports law.

Trademark Litigation Firms of the Year
CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office
Chang Tsi & Partners
HFG Law & Intellectual Property
Kangxin Partners
Unitalen Attorneys at Law.

CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office has recently handled two cases for ExxonMobil, both of which were appeals of invalidation decisions of the CNIPA against the trademark “霸王1号” in Classes 1 and 7, respectively. In these two appeals, the only cited mark is “黑霸王”, registered and is used on engine oils in Class 4. The firm claimed that the disputed trademark registrations were in violation of Article 30 of the China Trademark Law, as the disputed mark is similar to the cited mark, and the designated goods, though not in the same class, are similar or closely relevant to the goods of the cited mark, and there is the likelihood of confusion. The Beijing IP Court found that the trademarks are similar and determined the goods to be similar ones. “It is important to note that when determining the similarity of goods, one core criterion is to see if the related public are to be easily misled, and the relevance of the goods in terms of their social features as well as their physical characteristics are to be considered,” the firm said in a statement.

Chang Tsi & Partners has created a centralized management structure and client-oriented operation system to provide tailor-made legal solution packages with customers’ interests as the top priority. The firm handled 592 litigation cases, an increase of 21 percent over the previous year. Partners are working to develop the firm’s business not only in its traditional North America market, but also in Europe, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and emerging economies. “Chang Tsi & Partners achieved remarkable results [for us]. Not only was the team professionally strong, but it also had the ability to stand in customer’s perspective and consider issues, and it effectively helped us solve many key issues,” said lawyers from China Grand Enterprises, which retained the firm’s services.

HFG Law & Intellectual Property practices out of offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, offering contentious and non-contentious IP work with commercial and corporate law services. The firm advised Mary Kay, a purveyor of cosmetics, in a case against an infringing defendant which had been selling Mary Kay’s products through its online shop, with batch number and service QR codes which had been removed from the packages. The court ruled that the sale of the products with decoded batch numbers and service QR codes constituted unfair competition. “There is not an explicit stipulation about this decoding behavior in the current law and whether decoding products could constitute illegal behavior is unknown. Through comprehensive debate, finally the court held the decoding behavior had violated Article 2 of Anti-unfair Competition Law and belongs to ‘general unfair competition act’,” the firm told Asia IP.

Kangxin Partners has eight offices across China, offering a range of IP services. The firm advised Ergo Chef in a series significant trademark administrative litigation cases against Guangdong Xinanya Trading Co. to prevent them from registering mark similar to the client’s unregistered trademark in Classes 7, 11 and 21. Ergo Chef has been designing and manufacturing kitchen knives, kitchen gadgets and accessories and, as far back as 2008, had business with Guangdong Xinanya. On October, 1, 2014, the client and Guangdong Xinanya reached a trademark license and distribution agreement, under which Guangdong Xinanya was the only distributor of the Ergo Chef brand. Then, the client noticed that Guangdong Xinanya applied for four of its marks in Classes 7, 11 and 21. Guangdong Xinanya also applied for other similar marks in other classes. Ergo Chef filed the trademark oppositions, invalidations as well as administrative litigations against them, and both the CNIPA and the court supported the Ergo Chef claim.

Unitalen Attorneys at Law has a significant practice in all areas of trademarks, including domestic and foreign trademark prosecution, trademark clearance and other counseling issues, licensing and enforcement of trademark, domain name rights, and litigation. The firm says that more than 1,000 clients rely upon it to handle trademark prosecution matters before the Chinese Trademark Office and abroad. The firm assisted Technogym in a trademark counterfeiting case in Nantong, which was named one of the Top Ten Law Enforcement Cases in Jiangsu Province. It also advised Ferrari on trademark infringement cases between Ferrari and Changsha Falali Wine Trading Co., Changhsha Enzuo Wine Commercial House and Leng Jun.

Patent Prosecution Firms of the Year
Advance China IP Law Office
CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office
Lung Tin IP Attorneys
NTD IP Attorneys
Unitalen Attorneys at Law.

Advance China IP Law Office is a full-service IP firm which is one of the country’s largest such firms, consisting of more than 1,000 IP professionals. The firm, which already had offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, launched an office in Wuhan in October after the Covid-19 outbreak, seeking opportunities to work with local innovators and to support the local community. In 2020, the firm filed more than 11,000 invention patents and 1,200 PCT applications.

CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office is the oldest and one of the largest full-service IP law firms in China, and it continues to provide strong results in litigation and prosecution. Since the implementation of China’s patent law in 1984, the firm has provided patent services for domestic and foreign clients, including prefiling consulting, patent prosecution and re-examination, patent administrative litigation, patent search and analysis, patent invalidation, patent infringement search and analysis, administrative and judicial enforcement, patent licensing and technology transfer, annuities payment, patent and non-patent document search and surveillance. Patent attorneys of the firm have significant experience in a variety of technical backgrounds, ensuring the extension of their services to all industries.

In 2021, Lung Tin IP Attorneys filed more than 10,000 new patent applications and more than 15,000 office action responses before the CNIPA on behalf of its global clients, and worked with foreign associates filing more than 2,000 new patent applications and 3,700 office action responses in multiple major jurisdictions on behalf of Chinese domestic clients. The firm says that overall grant rate is “excellent” and higher than the average number in the industry. Key clients for patent prosecution include OPPO, Tencent, BOE, Xiaomi, JD.com, Netease, Sinopec, DJI, Delta, TSMC, AUO, LG, Kyocera, Omron, Sumitomo, Ferrari, Metso, Valmet, Grundfos, KUKA, Sanofi, Lundbeck, nChain, Carlsberg, Evonik, Decathlon, Baxter, Koch, American Express, IFF, Halliburton and Nexteer.

NTD IP Attorneys is a full-service IP law firm; its services include patent prosecution and invalidation; trademark registration, opposition and cancellation; copyright and domain name registration; and others. The firm’s patent attorneys cover a broad range of technical fields, including computer science, networks, telecoms, electrical engineering, semiconductors, optics, mechanical engineering, automotive technics, machinery, environment engineering, material science, biotech, pharmaceuticals and chemistry. Among them, there are 73 litigation patent attorneys, who can represent clients before the courts in patent-related litigations. Last year, the firm handled more than 9,000 new patent filings and 14,000 office actions through offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Silicon Valley, Tokyo and Munich.

Unitalen Attorneys at Law has a significant practice in all areas of patents, including patent prosecution, counseling, licensing, contracts, technology transfers and portfolio defense with financial transactions. The firm’s patent group has more than 180 attorneys representing both domestic and international preparation and prosecution of patent applications before the Chinese Patent Office and foreign patent offices. In 2021, the firm successfully dealt with more than 46,000 patent prosecution cases, including more than 33,000 invention patents. Unitalen ranked No.1 with 11,791 patents in 2020 on the list of Number of Authorized Patent Agents for Inventions jointly released by IPRdaily, a Chinese intellectual property industry publisher, and incoPat Innovation Index Research Center. Since the establishment of the China Patent Award, jointly awarded by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patent applications handled by Unitalen have won many times.

Patent Litigation Firms of the Year
China Patent Agent (H.K.)
HFG Law & Intellectual Property
IP March
Jiangtian & Gongchen
Unitalen Attorneys at Law.

China Patent Agent (H.K.) was established in Hong Kong in 1984 is considered one of three pioneering Chinese intellectual property agencies, providing comprehensive IP services to clients in China and abroad. The firm won in a patent contributory infringement lawsuit at the Beijing High People’s Court on behalf of a European client, Darwin Technology International, which holds a China patent on an air purifier (ZL00806175.0). The domestic competitor, Yujie, provided the filters used in the purifiers to Beijing Technology Co., which in turn installed the filters into the purifiers and put the same onto the market. The Beijing High People’s Court in its second instance judgment affirmed that the plaintiff met its burden of proof of Yujie's knowledge of '175 patent and that the filters provided by Yujie are solely used for the infringing purifiers, i.e., having no substantial non-infringing uses, because of its special electrodes arrangements. The victory is worth noting because contributory infringement is rarely supported by the Chinese courts. Also, the test for establishing contributory infringement varies over time, especially during 2017-2021.

HFG Law & Intellectual Property practices out of offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, offering contentious and non-contentious IP work with commercial and corporate law services. The firm represented Santon in the appeal phase of a patent invalidation/administrative litigation action before the Supreme Court. Santon makes essential semiconductor switches and has the most important patent regarding this. The case regards the appeal at the Supreme People’s Court to the decision of the Beijing IP Court to partly invalidate the invention patent of Santon. The firm prepared arguments and evidence showing that the patent of Santon is new and inventive. “This is an important case to show China’s Supreme People’s Court how the expert in the field should use the patent law in order to conclude that invention patents are new and inventive., i.e. looking at the time before the filing of the patent, rather than using hindsight, i.e. knowledge from after the filing,” the firm told Asia IP, noting also that it is an important case for the European semiconductor industry and is being followed by both the Netherlands government and the European Commission.

IP March was founded just six years ago, but has already risen through the ranks under managing partner Stephen Yang, a noted writer and speaker on patent matters. Many of the firm’s professionals have more than a decade of experience and are widely respected by their peers. The firm’s work covers greater China from its headquarters in Beijing, including work in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Founded in the early 1990s, Jingtian & Gongchen is one of the first private, independent law partnerships in China. The full-service firm handles all manner of IP, cybersecurity, TMT, sports and entertainment and arts work, as well as capital and commercial work. The firm has advised on completed patent and IP disputes, particularly in the telecommunications, semiconductors, computers, consumer electronics and internet sectors, as well as disputes concerning standard-essential patents. Jingtian represents Guangdong OPPO Electronics Industry Co., one of the top smart terminal manufacturers in China, in its FRAND lawsuit with SHARP Corporation. The patent involved is a WiFi SEP owned by SHARP. This case involves parallel litigation between China and outside the territory. For the first time, the Chinese court has made it clear that it has the right to determine the global rate of standard essential patent portfolios. The outcome of this case may affect the FRAND negotiations between the licensors and licensees of the relevant industries.

Copyright Firms of the Year
Beijing Tiantai Law Firm
Co-effort Law Firm
East & Concord Partners
Lung Tin IP Attorneys
TransAsia Lawyers.

Beijing Tiantai Law Firm is noted for its copyright work. The firm was involved in a dispute over infringement of the right of communication through information networks of works between Higher Education Press against Shanghai Wide Entertainment Digital Technology Co. Lawyer Jie Zhang acted as the lawyer representing the plaintiff, Higher Education Press. The work involved in this case was not a common text or film and television program, but a course taught by a well-known university teacher and rated as a national high-quality resource sharing course. The rights to the course were granted to the plaintiff. The defendant argued that it should not be liable for damages as it was only the provider of information storage space and the relevant course was uploaded by its users. The case has significant implications for schools and the fields of publishing and online education. In the current network environment, it is very common for courses to be transmitted by infringement, and the right holders attach great importance to this. There is a limited number, however, of typical cases of course protection in judicial practice, and this case has important guiding significance for the trial of such cases.

Lawyers at Co-Effort Law Firm have a long history of providing clients with non-litigation service concerning copyright protection, including 119 copyright registrations during 2021. Clients include the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department, Shanghai Press and Publication Bureau, Shanghai Concert Hall, Shanghai Center of Chinese Operas, Shanda Games and Tencent. The firm represented Shengqu Games in series of cases of “Mir 2”. In December 2021, the Supreme People’s Court made a series of final judgments on the related rights and interests of Shengqu Games (formerly Shanda Games)’s IP of “Mir 2”. The court revised the first instance judgment made by the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court. The new judgment makes it clear that the renewal agreement on “Mir 2” signed by Shengqu Games and Actoz is legal and valid. Thus, an ownership dispute which lasted more than five years and is worth more than Rmb100 billion (US$15.4 billion) has finally been clarified.

East & Concord Partners has a legal team with extensive experience which has successfully rendered legal services to domestic and foreign clients. The firm has aided numerous enterprises in acquiring their copyright, trademarks, logos, and patents for effective protection.

Lawyers at Lung Tin IP Attorneys filed 88 copyright cases before the Copyright Protection Center of China last year. Most of the cases are copyright registrations of art works and registrations of computer software. The team also represented several clients to enforce their copyright in China against the third parties’ copies or imitation by sending C&D letters, filing complaints before the specific IP office or AMR, or filing civil litigations concerning copyright infringement.

Complementing its TMT practice, TransAsia Lawyers has significantly grown its dispute practice in the past year, especially in respect of commercial dispute resolution, advising some of the most prominent global and Chinese tech, telecom, media, and consumer product companies on IP-related matters. It also advises global and local publishers on copyright protection, anti-piracy work, license-driven China distribution and partnerships, copyright licensing packages, and contracting with domestic and overseas authors, producers and publishers for publishing and distribution, and TV and film adaptations. It advised Singaporean director Anthony Chen (one of Variety magazine’s “10 Directors to Watch”) and his film company Canopy Pictures on option agreements for a film involving a globally known sci-fi author. In parallel, it advised Canopy Pictures on a feature film co-invested with a major studio, including advised on the terms and conditions covering all phases of investment, production and distribution, rights clearance, etc.

Enforcement Firms of the Year
Hiways Law Firm
HongFang Law
IP Leader Attorneys-at-Law
JunZeJun Law Offices
Tee & Howe Intellectual Property

In the run-up to the September 2021 opening of Universal Studios Beijing, Hiways Law Firm provided intellectual property enforcement services for Beijing International Resort Co., Universal City Studios and Dreamworks Animation. The characteristics of IP protection of theme parks are aimed against conducts as taking advantage of the influence of the opening of movie theatres, infringing trademark rights, copyrights and other intellectual property rights. The Beijing Tongzhou Market Supervision Bureau investigated and dealt with the first domestic trademark infringement case for Universal Studios, when an Atour Hotel franchise located in Tongzhou District, Beijing, operated by Beijing Deye Yuntian Hotel Management Co., called its hotel “Universal Studios” without authorization, and used the words “Universal Studios” online and offline without authorization. business activities. The firm submitted an administrative complaint to the Beijing Tongzhou District Market Supervision Bureau, issued a legal opinion, and promptly communicated with law enforcement. The Beijing Tongzhou District Market Supervision Bureau identified the infringer’s trademark infringement, and immediately investigated and dealt with the hotel on the spot and imposed an administrative penalty of Rmb100,000 (US$15,400). This case is not only the first IP rights protection case for Universal Studios in China, but also the first IP rights protection case of Beijing International Resort Co. in China.

HongFang Law had numerous cases recognized on World IPR Day by entities within China. The Supreme People’s Court selected two cases handled by the firm chosen as part of their Top 50 Cases. The Guangdong High People’s Court picked the firm’s work to seek copyright protection on behalf of Hennessy as one of its Top 10 cases. The firm also advised Yang Gao against multiple companies in a copyright infringement dispute. Despite all claims dismissed in the first instance, the second instance court reversed the judgment and ordered the defendants to publicly apologize and pay compensation. The final court confirmed that video screenshots can be categorized into photographic work and found automatic photography constituted photographic works for the purposes of copyright law in this case. The firm also undertaken enforcement work for Treasury Winery Estate, Mobil, Shell, BP, Castrol, WD-40, Hennessy, Diageo, Ferrero and others, against both copycats and counterfeits.

IP LEADER Attorneys-at-Law undertook 21 different enforcement cases last year with successful results, as well as 100 litigation cases, including 90 civil cases and 10 criminal cases. The Qingdao-based firm has offices in the heart of city’s Laoshan financial district as well as the Qingdao Research and Innovation Center in the China Electronics Optics Valley.

The IP practice at JunZeJun Law Offices comprises a number of specialist practitioners who have both significant government employment experience and significant litigation experience. In the past year, it represented Dyson Technology in several different criminal cases of counterfeit. The firm cooperated with police from different regions China, including the Shandong Yantai Police, the Wuxi Yixing Police, and the Shanghai Huangpu Police, dealing with criminal cases of counterfeiting registered trademarks, seized a large number of counterfeit Dyson hair dryers and Dyson curling irons, and arrested nearly 100 criminal suspects. Many cases have become annual major intellectual property cases of such Public Security Bureaus. Among those, the counterfeit Dyson hair dryer case handled by us and the Wuxi Police has become a national counterfeiting case in 2021, which was reported by CCTV news and aroused heated discussion on Sina Weibo. In the Wuxi case, the firm cooperated with the police to find more than three warehouses of the fake products, and successfully seized the person who was in charge. At the same time, it assisted Dyson in the corresponding civil litigations and request for compensation.

Tee & Howe Intellectual Property Attorneys acted for Baidu, the largest Chinese search engine, to fight against around 40 pass-off websites. Hong Zheng exhausted all possible legal measures, including sending C&D letters and negotiating with the infringers and/or the ISPs. Zheng achieved over a 95 percent chance of success in shutting down the infringing websites in 2021, the highest success rate, according to Baidu. The firm was one of the first IP firms licensed by CNIPA to deal with IP services involving overseas affairs. Today, it has more than 230 employees, including more than 90 patent attorneys and 30 patent engineers, 15 trademark attorneys and nine attorneys-at-law.

Licensing & Franchising Firms of the Year
CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office
China Patent Agent (H.K.)
Global Law Office
NTD IP Attorneys
Tian Yuan Law Firm.

Global Law Office recently advised Chunhua Capital on its acquisition of Mead Johnson’s China business (a transaction valued at up to Rmb14 billion (US$2.15 billion)), including IP due diligence and facilitating the acquisition of the relevant IP rights of the Mead Johnson brand from Reckitt Benckiser Group by Chunhua Capital. Mead Johnson is a leading manufacturer of infant formula globally with its flagship product Enfamil. The firm is headquartered in Beijing, with branches in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu.

Beijing-based Tian Yuan Law Firm is a full-servicelaw firm founded in 1992. Since June 2021, the firm has advised on a technology import project from South Korea for Zhuhai Wedge Biomedical Co., providing due diligence on technology-related intellectual property rights FTO analysis of products and stability analysis of core patents, as well as participating in negotiations and drafting license agreements. The firm has also advised on a technical cooperation development project of a strain improvement project for Hangzhou Bota Biosciences Co., in which it advised on the formulation of technical cooperation and development plans, promoting technical cooperation and development negotiations as well as drafting relevant agreements.

Technology, Media & Telecoms Firms of the Year
Beijing Uni-intel Patent and Trademark Law Firm
Global Law Office, Jingtian & Gongcheng
JunZeJun Law Offices
TransAsia Lawyers.

In the past 12 months, Beijing Uni-intel Patent and Trademark Law Firm handled more than 400 patent drafting and filing projects for Huawei, a top company in China, around 400 patent drafting and filing projects for Tianma, one of the top cellphone screen manufacturers in China, around 300 patent drafting and filing projects for Unisoc, which is one of the top chip manufactures in China, around 200 patent drafting and filing projects for China Mobile, which is the top telecommunication company in China, around 250 patent drafting and filing projects for Honor, which is one of main players in cellphone industry, and around 110 patent drafting and filing projects for Jinko Solar, which is now one of main players in photovoltaic industry. Among the above filing numbers, around 600 patent applications in total are overseas filings to the United States, the EPO, Japan, South Korea and other such offices.

Pharma, Biotech & Life Sciences Firms of the Year
AFD China Intellectual Property Law Office
CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office
HengDu Law Firm
IP March
Peksung Intellectual Property.

AFD China Intellectual Property Law Office is a full-service IP firm which is ranked a top tier firm by the Beijing IP Office, has been a top 10 PCT filer in China since 2009 (and has been top 20 in the world since 2011), and has three times been named a leading agency by the Beijing Patent Attorneys Association with the recognition of providing comprehensive, spot-on and one-stop services. The firm, in representing a client in litigation against the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), eventually secured a domestic priority in China of a patent of the client’s, which may result in improved understanding of domestic priority and related procedures across the industry. The case was eventually heard by the Supreme People’s Court.

HengDu Law Firm, a full-service firm based in Beijing, serves clients in 47 different practice areas, but perhaps top among them is its patent practice. Clients include Sinochem Fertilizer, the information centre of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and others. Founder of the firm Jiang Fengtao is noted for his work in pharmaceuticals, food and beverage and several other areas. He represented Guangzhou Wanglaoji Pharmaceutical Co. against Guangdong Jaiduobao Drink & Food Co. to identify part of Jiaduobao’s advertising as misleading.

Peksung Intellectual Property offers a full spectrum of premium intellectual property services that cover all facets of IP law, including patents, trademarks, designs, copyright, trade secrets, licensing, technology transfer, enforcement, anti-counterfeiting and others for domestic and overseas clients. The firm has handled patent prosecution matters for Bayer in pharma and biotech areas; for AbbVie in pharma and for Oxford Nanopore in biotech. Jiancheng Jiang, one of the founders of Peksung, is a vice president of the All-China Patent Agents Association.

Regional Firms of the Year

Beijing–Unitalen Attorneys at Law,
Shanghai–HFG Law & Intellectual Property
Guangzhou–Advance China IP Law Office.