State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Provisions for the Prohibition of the Abuse of Intellectual Property to Eliminate or Restrict Competition by Administrations for Industry and Commerce (Draft for Comments)

Issued: June 11 2014

Main contents: The Provisions prohibit business operators from reaching monopolistic agreements in the course of the exercise of their intellectual property rights, and prohibit business operators that have a dominant market position from abusing such position in the course of exercising their intellectual property rights to eliminate or restrict competition.

The Provisions additionally specify whether four specific exercises of intellectual property rights constitute relevant monopolistic acts, e.g. patent pools, the formulation and implementation of standards (including mandatory requirements of state technical standards), activities of collective copyright management organisations and the issuance of letters of warning of infringement of intellectual property. Such acts may separately or together constitute a monopolistic agreement or the abuse of dominant market position.