The Coherent, the Meh and the Left Behind Part 1: China
- Marta Beckwith
- Sep 23
- 7 min read
I wanted to title this series of posts “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in a homage to the spaghetti Western’s conception of the American West. However, these categories do not line up so clearly with the current state of the world’s most used SEP litigation jurisdictions. Instead, I titled this series of posts “The Coherent, the Meh and the Left Behind.” These are more useful categories to describe the SEP policies of the most used—and top emerging—SEP litigation jurisdictions. China is the only jurisdiction in the “Coherent” category. There are three countries in the “Meh” category: the UK, India and Brazil. The US and the European Union are quickly on their way to being “left behind” because they do not have coherent SEP policies and/or they are backsliding from previous policies.[1]
Let me note that just because strategies and policies are well-formulated and consistent does not necessarily mean that they are beneficial to the development and implementation of useful standards. A jurisdiction can have a consistent methodology (for example the German courts) for dealing with SEPs that is “bad” for the development and adoption of useful standards. Conversely, at least historically, an “ugly” (e.g. inconsistent) set of policies can sometimes be less of a hindrance for standard development and adoption.
Nonetheless, by developing and implementing coherent strategies though government-backed standards policies, governments show they understand, and have taken concrete steps, to support the importance of standardization and SEP policy. This first post spotlights the only “Coherent” jurisdiction: China. China is the standout when it comes to having a consistent, comprehensive strategy around standards and SEPs.
I also wanted to note that I recently attended both IAM’s SEP Summit Global 2025 in London and WIPO’s Symposium on Standard Essential Patents in Geneva. Both of them had a number of commentators that focused on these same six jurisdictions. I will be interweaving information from those conferences into the posts in this series.
Patenting and Licensing
Over the past decade, Chinese companies have increasingly dominated the development of some of the world’s most important standards. See, Convergence and Competition - A Tale of Two Standards Part 5: Huawei. Beyond Huawei, another Chinese company (ZTE) is also in the top ten SEP holders for both 5G and WiFi 6. And the 2025 Lexis Nexis’ report on “Who is Leading the 5G Patent Race” stated that “Chinese-headquartered companies now account for over 40% of 5G-declared patent families.”[2] Yes, you read that correctly, Chinese companies own over 40% of patents declared to be essential to the 5G standard. This is up from nearly nothing for 3G essential patents.[3] It obviously represents a clear strategy and concerted effort around Chinese participation in the development of standards and the development of a Chinese owned patent thicket for important standards.
Is this policy government backed? That’s not clear – but, over the years, a number of countries have banned Huawei and ZTE products because of allegations of Chinese government involvement.[4]
Chinese companies also increasingly use that patent thicket in their own strategic self-interest. Historically, Chinese companies were the ones paying to license SEPs and the ones being sued for infringement in SEP litigation. But in the last few years, Chinese companies increasingly have used their (very large) SEP portfolios offensively. For example, Huawei now has a SEP licensing program[5] and has filed a multitude of SEP infringement lawsuits against other companies, including Netgear (WiFi 6), Mediatek (a chipmaker for cellular) and Amazon (WiFi 6) and very recently, HP, Inc. (WiFi 6).
Chinese courts have decided that they can make worldwide patent license decisions, even for patent pools. Chinese courts also have decided that they have authority to issue anti-suit injunctions preventing companies appearing before them from seeking injunctions in other forums. See, First Pop Quiz Revisited - The EU Complaint Against China. Chinese companies have been advocating for these decisions in order to have global FRAND rates determined in China.
This plays out in real time. When Nokia sued OPPO all over the world on its cellular SEP portfolio (including in several of the jurisdictions we are discussing here), OPPO responded by filing a lawsuit in China. The Nokia/OPPO case lead to one of the early decisions in which the Chinese courts determined they could set worldwide patent license rates.[6] China’s courts have also decided that these decisions apply to setting global FRAND rates for non-Chinese patent pools.[7]
Anti-Monopoly Guidelines
China’s regulators also have gotten into the SEP world by releasing Anti-Monopoly Guidelines specifically addressing standards and standard essential patents. I previously discussed this in my post: Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for Standard Essential Patents.
Influence on Other Countries
China also is influential on the policies of other countries. Recently, a “Virtual BRICS Summit” took place at which China’s President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech entitled “Forging Ahead in Solidarity and Cooperation.”[8] The “BRICs” – Brazil, Russia, India and China – are rapidly drawing politically closer to each other. Whether this will result in them drawing closer together when it comes to SEP and standardization policies remains to be seen.
What China Has to Say About Its Policies
There were a couple of fascinating panels at the WIPO conference. These included a panel entitled “SEP Litigation and Judicial Developments” at which a number of judges spoke, including the Presiding Judge of the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court of China (“China IPC”), and another one entitled “Policy and Regulation: What Governments Can Do” at which a number of government officials spoke, including someone from China’s National Intellectual Property Administration.[9] Here’s what they had to say about Chinese court’s and Chinese government policies on SEPs and standardization.
Courts: China’s IPC handles both intellectual property and monopoly cases and so it is well equipped to deal with monopoly issues that arise in standards related matters. The China IPC treats SEPs as special and different from non-SEP patents. China will exercise jurisdiction over global rate setting as long as there is enough of a connection between China and the dispute such as if the asserted portfolio contains significant Chinese patents or there are significant impacted Chinese sales. If there are parallel overseas proceedings, China will balance the rights of the parties before it with international sovereignty and comity. But, China is well-equipped to address global rate setting and issues surrounding violation of FRAND commitments. The speaker quoted the IPC President and Chief Judge as saying that the goal of the IPC is “coordinating conflict resolution to settle disputes at root.”
Other panel participants at WIPO had this to say: China is not traditionally a case law country. But, Chinese courts have been working hard to improve adjudication inefficiencies by developing a case retrieval system (i.e. a docketing system) and working more closely together to make Chinese adjudication similar to what happens in case law jurisdictions. Since there is not world-wide agreement about what FRAND means, Chinese courts will address this issue through the application of its own legal system, including its anti-monopoly laws, which requires good faith negotiations on both sides.
Government Policies: Standards are a core carrier of innovation and accelerate the commercialization of inventions. We put a great importance on standards, and have been doing strategic planning to lead its development. Standards are a key part of our national strategy. To date, the Ministries for industry, market regulation, the courts, Justice and the patent office have worked together to focus on addressing issues related to standardization and SEPs. We worked together to formulate the guidelines on patent pools and on the development of standards. Our principles are that everyone should be able to obtain a FRAND license equitably and equally. We have improved our anti-monopoly rules to prevent risks and abuses which restrict innovation and to clarify what we expect to be the norms in standardization and SEP licensing to maintain a level playing field.
We monitor SEP policies globally. We have ongoing supervision of patent pools. We are working on patent disclosure rules and continue to accelerate the development of standards and policies around SEPs. Some of the things we are doing include:
a. Improving institutional rules regarding SEP licensing;
b. Promoting the existing Anti-Monopoly Guidelines;
c. Continuing to regulate in order to promote policy and essentiality review methods and to bring more consistency to how it is done;
d. Continuing to develop our collaborative framework for addressing these issues;
e. Developing databases to provide better and smoother access to information about SEPs;
f. Promoting international cooperation on these issues;
g. Actively participating in ISO, WIPO, the ITU and other organizations that develop standards to address their intellectual property rules and to create additional SEP licensing resolution methods.
Conclusion
To sum it up: China has its act together when it comes to standards and SEPs. China understands standards and standardization to be critically important to China’s future economic growth and its goal to lead world-wide innovation. China’s courts, regulators, Ministries and companies have developed, and are continuing to develop, a coherent, well formulated and consistent strategy around standards and SEPs, along with regulations and policies to support that strategy.
[1] I have been writing about these jurisdictions for almost two years ago ever since I first started this blog in 2023. See e.g., Answers to First Pop Quiz; The U.S. and U.K. Government's Recent SEP Related Actions; First Pop Quiz Revisited - The EU Complaint Against China; Jurisdiction No. 6 - India and Jurisdiction No. 6 - India - Part 2; A Role for the EU Competence Centre.
[3] See, iRunway Research Report Reveals 2G & 3G Patent Landscape, Sheds Light on Nokia Acquisition and 3G Cellular Standards and Patents
[4] See, New law bans US gov’t from buying tech from Chinese giants ZTE and Huawei - Ars Technica and Tech stocks slide on US decision to blacklist Huawei and 70 affiliates | TechCrunch; European countries who put curbs on Huawei 5G equipment | Reuters; Lawmakers to U.S. companies: Don't buy Huawei, ZTE - CNET and Huawei-ZTE Investigative Report (FINAL).pdf
[6] See, Chongqing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court Sets Global FRAND Rate for 5G SEPs at $0.707/Unit in Nokia/OPPO Case - China IP Law Update and A recap of the ongoing Nokia vs. Oppo patent dispute on its two-year anniversary - IP Tech Insider
[7] See Acess Advance and TCL: A Submission to the Shenzhen Court – China IPR – Intellectual Property Developments in China and Chinese courts can now set SEP rates for foreign patent pools - IAM.
[9] These were Mr. Liming Kong, Presiding Judge, Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court of China, and Mr. Wei Jiang, Second-level Inspector, National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). And, this is all based on my notes of what was said. Some of this was said in Chinese and my notes are based on the translation into English that was provided by WIPO. I apologize in advance for any mistakes that may have crept in because of any of that.