The Communist Party of China (CPC) has a protectionist plan and a shared agenda (not just tactics) with Battistelli, who significantly lowered patent quality for the sake of raw quantity

Summary: China now targets other Asian countries/firms -- more so than Western firms -- with patent lawsuits; we expect this to get worse in years to come

KOREAN giant Samsung, which employs an extraordinary number of people, has traditionally been one of the top patenters (if not the top patenter, e.g. in 2012) at the EPO and USPTO, not just KIPO. Sure, it fell behind LG (the 'other' South Korean giant) this past year at the EPO, for whatever reason (we don't want to speculate).

"China's patent aggression is a growing problem and it's like nothing we ever saw in Japan and Korea (traditionally of the patent ideology of live and let live)."Samsung, at least traditionally, is not patent-aggressive. In other words, it rarely sues anyone except if sued first. The same is said about Korean culture in general. Some time ago China began assaulting LG with patents -- to the point where LG withdrew/pulled a lot of its business out of China. Samsung too came under many attacks in China and then it retaliated, even in the US. The latest in this retaliation? Florian Müller reports on the injunction against Huawei (highly CPC-connected firm):

A few days ago, Law360.com reported that United States District Judge William H. Orrick (Northern District of California) expressed an inclination at a Wednesday hearing to grant Samsung's motion seeking to bar Huawei from enforcing a couple of Chinese patent injunctions before the U.S. court has determined whether it is, in light of its FRAND obligations, entitled to injunctive relief.

You won't be surprised if you've been following the case here. Two weeks ago I published a post here with a headline that contained the following prognosis: "antisuit injunction looms large"

Even though I'm just a little blogger, it's a bit daring to offer such a prediction based on the briefing record, especially since antisuit (here, actually just anti-enforcement) injunctions don't come down every day. But for the reasons explained in my previous posts, above all Ninth Circuit case law, Huawei won't be able to complain.

China's patent aggression is a growing problem and it's like nothing we ever saw in Japan and Korea (traditionally of the patent ideology of live and let live). A few days ago Managing IP wrote:

Big changes to the intellectual property office, including combining the enforcement functions of trade marks and patents, are expected to strengthen IP enforcement in China

Managing IP speaks of "administrative overlap" at SIPO. The main issue with SIPO, however, is not "administrative overlap" but really low patent quality which already causes patent trolls to soar there and few large Chinese firms (which can afford to fight trolls in court) to merely consolidate power.

"...expect Xi and CPC to try to leverage their 'soft power' abroad with patents."China isn't what patent maximalists claim it to be (we wrote many rebuttals to that effect recently) and the number of granted patents says little about innovation. Chinese patents at European and American patent offices are basically the 'best of Mandarin' (SIPO patents translated, sometimes with help from foreign workers). Those are the patents that are probably actually worth something.

Either way, expect Xi and CPC to try to leverage their 'soft power' abroad with patents. They know that trade sanctions are imminent (if not already in tact, e.g. tariffs), so it's a form of deterrent or counterattack. ⬆