Authored by Michael Gu (michaelgu@anjielaw.com) at AnJie Law Firm
On 7 April 2015, State Administration for Industry and Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (SAIC) published China’s first anti-monopoly regulation specifically aimed at the abuse of intellectual property rights (IP), namely the Provisions on the Prohibition of Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights for the Purpose of Eliminating or Restricting Competition (the Provisions) which will become effective on 1 August 2015. The drafting of the Measures can be traced back to 2009, when the SAIC established a special task force to carry out the research and drafting of the Guidelines on the Anti-monopoly Enforcement in the Intellectual Property Rights field (the Consultation Draft)(the Guidelines). Based on the draft Guidelines, the SAIC issued the draft Provisions for public consultation (the Consultation Draft) in June 2014.The Official promulgation of the Provisions marks a giant leap for the SAIC in terms of anti-monopoly legislation in the IP field.