In April 2018 the High People’s Court of Guangdong Province issued the “Working Guideline on the Trial of Standard Essential Patent Disputes (For Trial Implementation)”. The guideline consisted of five parts and 32 articles in total and was considered extensively as a comprehensive and integrated directive document in comparison with the Judge Guideline of Patent Infringement （published by High People’s Court of Beijing in 2017）. The guideline was formulated on the base of relevant China’s laws, regulations and judicial interpretations referring also to business and trial conventions involving standards essential patent (SEP) disputes. Although it was not a judicial interpretation and without any legal effect, the guideline would definitively play an important rule of guidance and demonstration on SEP-related issues in China. List of the five parts are
• General definitions and principles
• Civil liability termination of SEP
• Identification of SEP royalty
• Monopoly disputes
• Scope of application
This guideline is applicable for the SEP lawsuit cases in ICT field, and other SEP dispute and lawsuits can reference this guideline based on their industry situations.
The Chinese version of this guideline can be downloaded here http://www.gaohangip.com/article/3187.html
