Posts in China

During a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing on the Oversight of the U.S. Copyright Office on Tuesday, the intersection of copyright law, artificial intelligence, and executive branch interference were the key focuses. Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter provided critical updates on the Copyright Office’s modernization efforts. However, the hearing was punctuated by sharp rebukes from Democratic senators regarding former President Donald Trump’s recent attempts to assert executive control over the legislative branch agency.

On April 30, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released this year’s Special 301 Report, which surveys the effectiveness of intellectual property (IP) rights and enforcement abroad and identifies foreign nations where IP protections are uncertain or disregarded. The 2026 report marks the first time in 13 years that a Priority Foreign Country (PFC) has been named, with Vietnam being identified as a PFC for persistent failures to address several long-standing IP concerns. The USTR has also added the European Union (EU) to the Special 301 Report’s Watch List, the first time since 2006 that the continental government has been identified for IP-related concerns in addition to individual European nations.

China was not the only actor being scrutinized today during a full Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, titled “Stealth Stealing: China’s Ongoing Theft of U.S. Innovation.”  Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) stood in for Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) as Chair and opened the hearing with a warning that, in addition to its blatant IP theft—which is estimated to cost the United States between $400 billion and $600 billion per year—China is more recently evolving from “imitator to innovator.” “The United States must overcome its historic and ideological views that China is unable to innovate,” Tillis said.

I have been to China several times over the past decade. Each time, I came back with the same reaction: too many people in the United States are still badly underestimating what is happening there. I do not say that as a political statement. I say it as a practical one. There is still a surprisingly common view in American business circles that China’s patent activity is mostly noise. Too many filings. Too much subsidy. Too little real innovation. The implication is that, yes, China may be filing a mountain of patents, but most of it can safely be discounted. I think that view is becoming harder and harder to defend.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) today released its 2026 International IP Index, which flagged concerning trends about the “growing erosion of IP leadership” among the world’s high-performing economies, according to the report’s authors. In particular, the report noted that scores in eight EU Member States have declined this year, although the top ten rankings remained the same from 2025. The United States was again number one, with a relatively stable score of 95.15% compared with last year’s 95.17%.

The Trump Administration is trying to counter China on nearly every strategic front, from the South China Sea to the factory floor. Yet the Administration, and Congress, haven’t yet done much to address one of America’s biggest vulnerabilities—the steady decline of our once world-class system of intellectual property (IP) rights.

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing titled Foreign Threats to American Innovation and Economic Leadership, featuring testimony from private businesses on the myriad challenges facing American intellectual property (IP) owners in the face of illegal activities sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Along with consumer safety and national security risks, the day’s hearing featured discussion of several IP-related bills, some of which will be introduced into Congress in the coming days.

A group of Chinese companies struck out for a second time at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Monday when the court ruled they lacked foreign sovereign immunity and therefore are not shielded from an indictment for economic espionage in connection with their alleged efforts to steal trade secrets from E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (DuPont).

As tariffs and the trade war with China intensify, companies that have long relied on Chinese manufacturing are increasingly exploring alternatives across Asia—with Vietnam emerging as a top contender. The country offers a compelling combination of lower labor costs, strategic trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) , the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), and  Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and a rapidly improving infrastructure that supports large-scale production and export.

Yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center published the 2025 International IP Index, the Chamber’s annual assessment of legal frameworks for intellectual property (IP) protections in countries across the globe. While this year’s IP Index marked little movement among the top nations for IP legal frameworks, leaving the United States as the top nation overall for yet another year, stronger IP protections in Middle Eastern countries and efforts to weaken IP protections for pharmaceuticals in the EU and U.S. were among the key findings driving changes to this year’s report.

With Donald J. Trump back in the White House, intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy are poised for significant shifts. During IPWatchdog LIVE 2025, an expert panel titled “Inside the Beltway: The Future of IP and Innovation Policy,” featuring retired Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Paul Michel, U.S. House Judiciary Chief Counsel for IP J. John Lee, Senate IP Director Peter-Anthony Pappas, and public policy expert Patrick Kilbride discussed what lies ahead for patent law, legislative reforms, and America’s ability to compete in a rapidly changing global landscape.

Many people know about trademark filings, but have you ever heard about trademark refilings? Before 2023, registering a trademark in China often involved filing several iterations of the same trademark application consecutively (so-called “refilings” of the original mark) before one of the marks proceeded to registration. This was often quite frustrating for those not used to the practice. To add to this headache, many brand owners have been told they should refile a trademark after it has already registered. As a result, it isn’t unheard of to have 5-10 filings for the same mark (and the costs definitely add up).

The U.S. Senate held a nomination hearing to vet Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, this past week. While much of the hearing focused on issues outside of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Lutnick touched on several key points relevant to the intellectual property system.

Last week, patent data tracking firm IFI CLAIMS published its annual rankings of the Top 50 U.S. Patent Assignees and the Top 10 Fastest Growing Technologies of 2024, providing a snapshot of the world’s most innovative companies and rapidly advancing tech sectors by analyzing U.S. patent grants totals over the last calendar year. Although U.S. patent grants increased overall last year, pointing to the strength of the domestic market, foreign economic rival China continued to make significant gains in acquiring U.S. patents.