Against a backdrop of rising global trade tensions, Chinese companies are increasingly turning their attention to international markets. Simply exporting their products abroad is no longer a sustainable strategy and they need to expand overseas. Globalisation has become a strategic imperative. However, as they expand their operations abroad, these enterprises need to deal with all the intellectual property (IP) challenges that are faced by any company going global.

On 7 March 2025, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and the National Radio and Television Administration jointly issued the Measures for the Identification of AI-Generated Synthetic Content, which will take effect on 1 September 2025.

Decathlon is a French sports ware supplier. Decathlon, which entered the Chinese market as early as 2003, has opened around 200 stores nationwide. Through years of continuous promotion, the trade dress of Decathlon stores has formed a unique style and have become well known among the Chinese consumers.

On 6 January 2025 the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) published the “Opinion on Safeguarding Technological Innovation through High-Quality Judicial Adjudications” (Fa Fa [2005] No 1).

Amid heightened global attention on environmental protection, the recycling and reuse of products is becoming a key consideration for the Chinese government. Relevant legislation has been introduced - such as the Environmental Protection Law and the Circular Economy Promotion Law - to encourage and facilitate the establishment of recycling systems. However, these fail to directly address the issue of the exhaustion of IP rights in product recycling and the conditions under which IP rights can be reasserted.

China’s booming social media landscape presents vast opportunities for brand owners to connect with a massive consumer base. Social media platforms have become a major channel for advertisement and direct communication. However, there are also challenges such as trademark infringement, counterfeit goods, copyright violations, false advertising and unfair competition. To protect their IP rights and business interests and ensure compliance with Chinese laws, brand owners must be well versed in the legislation that governs social media platforms and be familiar with different enforcement strategies for different platforms. In this article, we will explore popular social media platforms in China, the laws that regulate e-commerce, advertising, and intellectual property protection, and offer advice for brand owners to better protect their interests on social media platforms.

In today’s highly competitive business environment, trade secrets are often pivotal in maintaining the competitive edge of innovative companies. In China, confidential information may be protected by way of trade secrets, but the law has a stringent legal test for what constitutes trade secrets and not all confidential information can pass muster.

2023 has seen the confirmation of changes to the Chinese strategy relating to the administration and protection of intellectual property rights, which have had a significant impact on the level of administrative litigation.

On 19 December 2023 the Beijing IP Court released statistics on its docketed cases from the first 11 months of 2023 and introduced the Guidelines for Handling Supporting Documents Certifying the Subject Qualification in Foreign-Related Cases at a press conference.

2023 is not a quiet year, even for China’s IP regime. The year started with the surprise release of the draft of the fifth amendment to the Trademark Law, concluded with the State Council’s approval of the third amendment to the Implementing Regulations of the Patent Law. These legislative moves along with an array of other fine tunings in procedure and practice will herald a more eventful 2024.