On May 29^th, 2020, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued the Notice on Eliminating Copycats of Famous Hospitals and Other Healthcare Institutions (the Notice).

The Notice aims to eliminate from the healthcare industry copycats that are engaged in freeriding the trade names or reputation of famous hospitals, in particular "Union"(“协和”), "Huashan"(“华山”), "Xiangya" (“湘雅”), "West China" (“华西”), "Qilu" (“齐鲁”), "Tongji" (“同济”) and "Tiantan" (“天坛”).

The SAMR vows to take measures, inter alia:

1.   Strengthen the protection of the trade names of famous hospitals and other healthcare institutions. Without authorization, enterprise names containing trade names of the aforesaid famous hospitals cannot be registered, those have already been registered should be changed;

2.   Ramp up efforts on fighting copycats, false advertisement and other unfair competition acts in the healthcare industry.

3.   Publicize the administrative punishment records of the healthcare institutions and list of the discredit enterprises.

Contributed by: Li Ma