China’s Pudong New Area People’s Procuratorate of Shanghai city and the CAICT Intellectual Property Center in December 2021 issued the Guidelines for Enterprise Compliance with Intellectual Property Rights (for Trial Implementation) (《企业知识产权合规标准指引（试行）》).

The guidelines effective in the Pudong New Area are meant to be referenced as a model by the legislature and policymakers in the city’s other administrative districts and beyond.

The guidelines are designed to help businesses implement practical internal policies to improve protection of their own intellectual property (IP) and that of others, and to increase compliance with IP laws, so as to reduce the business risks associated with counterfeiting and piracy.

Companies large and small in virtually every industry increasingly use and rely on intellectual property—the copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets and other intangible rights that underlie many products and services. In today’s economy, the “intellectual capital” embodied in inventions and creative content can be as important to economic growth as traditional capital, goods, and services.

The guidelines identify the risks associated with patents as illustrative examples to be patent misuse and abuse, patent ownership disputes, patent infringement, patent transfer, failures to enforce and commercialize patents, failures to meet patent deadlines, etc. Illustratory risks associated with trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets are also identified in the guidelines.

As a national pilot city for China’s corporate compliance reforms, Shanghai has issued a series of compliance guidelines, including the Guidelines for Enterprise Compliance with Data Laws (《企业数据合规指引》) , the Guidelines for Enterprise Compliance with Anti-Monopoly Laws (《上海市经营者反垄断合规指引》), the Guidelines for Blind Box Toys Enterprise Compliance (《上海市盲盒经营活动合规指引》).

The full text of the IP compliance guidelines in Chinese and English is available here.