By Susan Ning and Kate Peng
In August 2012, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce published the fifth draft of the Guidelines on Anti-Monopoly Law Enforcement in the Field of Intellectual Property (the “Draft Guidelines“). Although compulsory licensing is not expressly mentioned in the Draft Guidelines, many provisions therein seem to imply it being a possible remedy for relevant monopolistic conducts in the IP field. For example, where a dominant market player’s refusal to license has anti-competitive effects1, a compulsory license could be the right answer to the problem. However, the role to be played by the antitrust enforcement agencies in compulsory licensing is not clearly defined under the current legal system.
There are very limited provisions in the Chinese law with respect to compulsory licensing.
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