Recently, the Standardization Administration of the People’s Republic of China (SAC) and the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) enacted the Regulations for the Interim Administrative Regulations for Patent-related National Standardization (hereafter as the Regulations).
According to the Regulations:
At any stage of the formulation or revision of the national standards, the participating organizations or individuals should timely disclose the essential patents they owned or knew to the National Professional Standardization Techniques Commission or other concerned responsible entities and provide relevant patent information and verification materials thereof. Those otherwise performing or providing inauthentic materials should assume legal liability. Meanwhile, organizations or individuals who have not participated in the formulation or revision yet have or have known certain standard-essential patents are also encouraged to disclose such aforementioned information to the National Professional Standardization Techniques Commission or the responsible entities.
During the formulation or the revision of the national standard involving patents the National Professional Standardization Techniques Commission should timely obtain the patent licensing declarations from the patentees or the patent applicants, where it should explain whether the patentee or patent applicant is willing to license any other organization or individual, on reasonable and non-discriminatory basis, to implement his patent when executing the national standards. If the patentee or the patent applicant is not willing to issue a licensing declaration, the national standards should not include any provision based on the patent except for mandatory standards.
The Regulations has taken effect on January 1st, 2014.
