China’s Approach to Compulsory Licensing of Intellectual Property Under Its Anti-Monopoly Law

While a discussion of the misuse of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) can be quite broad, this paper focuses on one aspect of a significant question regarding the relationship between antitrust and IP laws:Whether and on what terms courts and competition regulators should compel a dominant firm to license its powerful intellectual property to a smaller rival. As many know, this question has already generated substantial controversy, largely because the relevant law in the United States and Europe provide markedly different answers. In China’s context, since compulsory licensing of IP is so complicated and subtle an issue, it may be too soon to recommend any specific approach. Certainly, more discussion and research are needed. However, as outlined in this paper, certain preliminary steps should be taken.