The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has rejected the European Union’s claims that China had violated the global watchdog’s rules on intellectual property.
A WTO panel concluded on April 24 that the EU had not demonstrated inconsistencies with WTO rules. It did say that China had failed to comply with all WTO transparency obligations.
The EU filed the complaint against China in 2022, alleging that Chinese courts were preventing European companies from protecting their telecom technology patents, including for 3G, 4G and 5G mobile technology.
It had alleged violations of the WTO’s agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights.
The bloc successfully proved to the panel that China had an unwritten policy allowing courts to issue Anti-Suit Injunction (ASI) orders that stopped parties from pursuing related cases in foreign courts.
The EU did not, though, prove that policy violated specific parts of the WTO’s intellectual property rules. The panel also did not find evidence that Chinese courts were unfair or inconsistent in applying the law.
China did violate its transparency obligations by not publishing a final judicial decision involving a Chinese smartphone maker and a US-based company that owns patents for 3G, 4G and 5G mobile technology, a Geneva-based trade source confirmed to Reuters.
The panel said China also should have responded to some the EU’s requests for information.
The EU has publicly said it will appeal against the result.
That will go to the Multi-Party Appeal Arbitration Arrangement – a surrogate for the WTO’s Appellate Body that was shut down in 2019 after the US repeatedly blocked judges’ appointments.
China confirmed on April 23 it had received the EU’s appeal and would handle the matter according to relevant rules, its commerce ministry said.
Beijing said it would work with other participants under the arbitration arrangement to firmly uphold the rules-based multilateral trading system.
