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Defeng Song

Partner

Fieldfisher

Defeng Song is a Partner in the intellectual property group of Fieldfisher. He is admitted as a lawyer in the People’s Republic of China and the State of New York, and holds the qualifications for the PRC patent bar and U.S. patent bar.

Defeng has a bachelor’s degree of engineering from Shandong University and three law degrees from China University of Political Science and Law, Hamburg University and New York University. With complex knowledge structure,  he has an excellent sense of both technology and law, as well as outstanding language skills. His working languages are Chinese and English.

Defeng’s practice covers the full-spectrum of intellectual property matters, with a major focus on patent, both contentious and non-contentious matters. He has successfully represented many household name clients from both China and beyond to act on patent infringement, patent invalidation, patent analysis, patent prosecution, and patent transaction and so on. He also is experienced in handling cross-border patent disputes and coordinating parallel patent litigation in multiple jurisdictions.

Prior to joining Fieldfisher, Defeng worked with both Chinese and international law firms for many years, including in his most recent position as head of IP at a multinational company.

Recent Articles by Defeng Song

Examining Upcoming Changes to the Implementing Regulations of the Chinese Patent Law

Recently, amendments to the Implementing Regulations of the Chinese Patent Law were issued and will take effect from January 20, 2024. The Regulations align with the revisions made to the Patent Law in 2020 and provide further guidance. The main changes to the new Regulations, as compared with the 2010 version of the Regulations,  can be summarized as follows.

Pay Attention: Writing Arbitration Agreements to Avoid Surprises

In commercial contracts, especially with foreign entities, it is very common to agree on arbitration as a dispute resolution method. A typical arbitration agreement specifies arbitrable matters, arbitration institution, place of arbitration, and arbitration rules. In crafting an arbitration agreement, especially when the arbitration clause is embedded in the main body, contracting parties normally write into the contract the applicable law and dispute resolution authority for the main contract, but rarely do the same for the arbitration agreement itself in addition to the main contract. In general, if a dispute involves issues surrounding the validity (or arbitrability) of an arbitration clause, whereas the arbitration agreement does not provide anything about arbitrability, two questions may come up in practice: (1) what is the applicable law on resolving the arbitrability issue? (2) who has jurisdiction over the arbitrability issue – a court or an arbitration institution?