The State Council executive meeting approved a draft Patent Law amendment bill on December 5, 2018. Yin Xintian, former head of CNIPA’s legal affairs department, expected the amendment to be adopted in 2019. The draft’s main proposals were as follows.
1. Higher Damages for Infringement
For intentional infringement in serious circumstances, damages could be set at one to five times the patentee’s loss, the infringer’s profit or the relevant royalty basis. Where those methods could not determine damages, the proposed statutory range increased from RMB 10,000–1 million to RMB 100,000–5 million, approximately USD 15,000–750,000.
2. Disposal of Rights in Service Inventions
Employers would be entitled to dispose of application rights and patent rights in service inventions according to law and use incentives such as equity, options and dividends to let inventors or designers share innovation benefits, promoting exploitation of the inventions.
3. Joint Liability for Online Service Providers
A patentee or interested party could ask an online service provider to delete, block or disconnect links to infringing products on the basis of an effective court judgment, ruling or mediation agreement, or an administrative decision ordering cessation of infringement. A provider failing to act promptly could incur joint liability.
4. A Fifteen-Year Design Patent Term
To prepare for China’s accession to the Hague Agreement, the draft proposed extending design protection from ten to fifteen years.