Wenliang Zhang, senior counsel from Global Yudu, delivered a compelling seminar at Hitotsubashi University examining the structural tension between territorial intellectual property law and the globalized innovation economy, using China’s rapid four-decade IP transformation as a central case study.
The seminar traced China’s remarkable journey from a jurisdiction with virtually no IP statutes in the early 1980s to the world’s largest patent filer and an increasingly assertive player in global IP governance. Zhang outlined five distinct evolutionary stages: the birth of the system in the 1980s driven by the Sino-U.S. Trade Agreement; U.S.-driven upgrading in the 1990s; WTO/TRIPS compliance around China’s 2001 accession; innovation-driven refinement following the 2008 National IP Strategy; and the current “fourth wave” characterized by institutional export and rule competition.
A key focus was China’s shifting role from “passive rule-taker to active rule-participant.” Landmark cases such as Michael Jordan v. Qiaodan Sports (2016) demonstrated judicial maturation beyond rigid formalism, while the establishment of specialized IP courts and the 2023 Civil Procedure Law amendment—which introduced “proper connection” jurisdiction and exclusive jurisdiction over IP validity disputes—signaled expanding judicial ambition.
The seminar devoted significant attention to anti-suit injunctions (ASIs) in SEP/FRAND disputes, including the Huawei v. Conversant (2020) and Huawei v. Netgear (December 2024) cases. Zhang highlighted the December 2024 Huawei v. Netgear case, where Chinese, German, and UPC courts issued parallel anti-anti-suit injunctions within two weeks, countering Netgear’s U.S. anti-suit move. Though aligned in direction, the episode exemplified jurisdictional fragmentation in global SEP disputes—a “new normal” of competing judicial assertiveness. Notably, following a 2025 WTO Appellate Body ruling in DS611 (EU v. China), China announced the withdrawal of its ASI policy in September 2025, to the extent that it ever existed.
The second half addressed private international law dimensions, including applicable law tensions under the lex loci protectionis principle and the persistent challenges in recognizing foreign IP judgments between China and Japan. Zhang cited the 2023 Shanghai No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court recognition of a Japanese bankruptcy judgment as a landmark breakthrough, adopting “legal reciprocity” rather than strict “factual reciprocity” at least so far as bankruptcy judgments are concerned.
To conclude, Zhang traced China’s four-decade IP evolution from passive rule-taker to active global shaper, examining territoriality-globalization tensions, landmark foreign-rights-holder cases, anti-suit injunctions in SEP/FRAND disputes, and private international law dimensions—including jurisdictional expansion under the 2023 Civil Procedure Law and cross-border judgment recognition challenges—while highlighting Chinese courts’ emerging role as strategic instruments in an increasingly fragmented, multipolar global IP governance landscape.
