Fed Circuit Judges Attend Historic Intellectual Conference in China

The adjudication of intellectual property issues is increasingly complex, thanks to globalization. So it's high time that the judicial minds came together to discuss the issues.

That's what led to a three-day conference in Beijing from May 28 to 30. The United States-China Intellectual Property Adjudication Conference was held at Renmin University in Beijing and had over 1,200 attendees, including business leaders, government officials and jurists.

According to the announcement on the Federal Circuit's website, this is the first time that leading Chinese and American jurists have come together in a public forum to discuss IP issues.

Seven judges from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals were present at the conference, including Chief Judge Randall R. Rader, Judge Raymond C. Clevenger III, Judge Richard Linn, Judge Timothy B. Dyk, Judge Sharon Prost, Judge Kimberly A. Moore, and Judge Jimmie V. Reyna.

The conference showed attendees the differences in the adjudication of intellectual property issues in the two respective countries. There was a mock trial at the conference which allowed jurists from both countries to see the differences in adjudication and specifically, the procedural differences in how intellectual property cases are handled.

The conference also included panels that focused on the enforcement of patent judgments, copyright, obviousness, trade secret protection, trademark and design patents, and the court's contributions to their countries' intellectual property systems.

While this was the first conference of its sort, hopefully it will open the door to similar conferences around the world. We've discussed the Samsung versus Apple controversy on this blog, and, while the case we discussed was a U.S. case, the reality is that we're dealing with multinational organizations and patented products that span the globe.

Related Resources:

• The Obviousness Test: Court Explains, Remands Amrix Patent Case (Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Blog)
• Browse Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Cases (FindLaw Caselaw)
• Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (US Courts)