Update on SPCs in China

Following our short post last May (here) about patent term extensions in China, Michael Lin and Xiaoyang Yang of Marks & Clerk have recently published an update on the progress for introducing supplementary term certificates in China, as well as patent linkage and data protection, in the Newsletter of the AIPLA Chemical Practice Committee (here).

In short:

"On January 4, 2019, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (hereinafter the “SCNPC”) released the draft amendments to the Chinese Patent Law for public comment.  Article 43 of the draft amendments allows for SPC, and provides that innovative drugs introduced to the Chinese market concurrently with overseas market could be eligible for a maximum of five-years extension to the patent term, wherein the remaining patent term after the extension should be no greater than fourteen years.
It is likely that the draft amendments would be reviewed by the SCNPC at least once more, and so it remains to be seen whether the SPC provisions will be sustained and/or revised. "

Many thanks to Michael Lin, Xiaoyang Yang and Roy Isaac (AIPLA) for allowing us to share this update with SPC Blog readers.