On June 27, 2025, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) passed the newly amended Anti-Unfair Competition Law (中华人民共和国反不正当竞争法). The amended Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL) will be effective October 15, 2025. While China is not a common law country, Article 7 of the AUCL nonetheless provides common law-like protection for unregistered marks that have a “certain influence.” Article 7 is updated to prohibit the use of others’ trademarks as business names or search keywords. However, this revision does not address much needed …
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U.S. Trade Representative Releases 2025 Special 301 Report – China Failed to Implement or Only Partially Implemented IP Commitments Under the Phase One Agreement
On April 29, 2025, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) released the 2025 Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement, of which 10 pages focus on China. The USTR stated, “serious concerns remain regarding long-standing issues like technology transfer, trade secrets, counterfeiting, online piracy, copyright law, patent and related policies, bad faith trademarks, and geographical indications. China has failed to implement or only partially implemented a number of its commitments on intellectual property under the United States-China Economic …
China Launches Special Campaign to “Clear Up and Rectify the Abuse of AI”
On April 30, 2025, China’s Cyberspace Administration (CAC) launched a 3-month campaign to “clear up and rectify the abuse of AI technology” including using information that infringes on others’ intellectual property rights, privacy rights and other rights. Per the Cyberspace Administration, “the first phase will strengthen the source governance of AI technology, clean up and rectify illegal AI applications, strengthen AI generation and synthesis technology and content identification management, and promote website platforms to improve their detection and identification capabilities. …
China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate Launches Intellectual Property Procuratorate
At an April 23, 2025 press conference, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) announced the launch of the Intellectual Property Procuratorate. Li Xuehui, Director of the General Office (Public Information Office) and Spokesperson of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, stated, “since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has elevated intellectual property protection to a national strategy. The report of the 20th CPC National Congress clearly pointed out the need to ‘strengthen the …