On 26 October 2018, China approved changes to litigation procedures for patents and other intellectual property (IP) cases, which fundamentally changes how the appeal process will work for certain technical IP disputes.

The decision implements a new regime that will permit the Supreme People’s Court to hear
appeals from first instance civil cases in relation to technical IP disputes including invention patents and utility models, new plant varieties, integrated circuit layout designs, technical trade secrets and computer software copyright. The changes take effect on 1 January 2019…